Vevo’s newest offering may seem a big of a throwback: The on-demand music video platform launched a curated live stream that looks and feels like MTV – but is all about devices. Read more at paidContent »
Rdio is coming to Austria, Ireland, Italy and four other countries. Spotify, meanwhile, plans to offer free mobile radio around the world. Read more at paidContent »
Pandora’s CEO Joe Kennedy is leaving the company after a fiscal quarter that saw both growing revenue and big losses. Kennedy will stay on until a successor is named. Read more »
YouTube wants to give mobile phone users a chance to find music video content by artist, discography and genre, with the goal of bringing music content to hundreds of millions of its users. These plans could be an answer to Vevo’s mobile music initiatives. Read more »
Spotify is adding a second batch of apps to its desktop player, and this time around, there is a big emphasis on record labels. That’s good, because labels could use these kinds of apps to reestablish themselves as curators in the age of subscription music. Read more »
MTV wants to embrace indie bands in a big way, launching 1 million artist pages later this summer. But how is the network going to make sure artists actually sign up? Tie-ins with its on-air programming and e-commerce opportunities could be key. Read more »
Music subscription service Rdio relaunched its web and desktop experience at a press event at SXSW Tuesday in an attempt to focus more on music discovery and bring a desktop-like music experience to the web. The new UI takes some hints from iTunes, Spotify and Facebook. Read more »
When it comes to the future of music, we all like to talk about Spotify, file sharing and the decline of the CD. But those flashy stories may distract us from a much bigger trend – a trend that is powered by CMS systems and CRMs. Read more »
A new Pandora competitor called Raditaz combines customized online radio stations with location. Users can see what stations others are listening to in their neighborhood and even geotag stations specific to their gym or office. Raditaz built the service with a team of just seven. Read more »
Grooveshark has shut down in Germany, blaming exorbitant licensing costs and redirecting users to a local Spotify clone. However, rights holders singled out by Grooveshark say that they have never actually been contacted by the service. Meanwhile U.S. lawsuits against Grooveshark continue. Read more »
Will Grooveshark be the next LimeWire? The streaming music service is going to be sued by Warner Music and Sony Music, according to a report from the New York Times. This could mark a shift in litigation from P2P services to streaming music providers. Read more »
What’s next for Spotify: An MP3 download store, a commercial API that could empower developers to bring the service’s music everywhere, music playback without the need to download any software – or maybe just an iPad app? Read all about the rumors ahead of Wednesday’s press conference. Read more »
Google’s music platform may look a lot like iTunes, but for small indie artists, there’s lots to like. Google treats musicians like Android app developers, offering them a 70 percent market share. Add YouTube as a sales platform, and it could be a game changer. Read more »
Grooveshark relaunched its music service with a much bigger emphasis on activity streams and other social features Thursday night, and company representatives told us that they have big plans in store that should help artists to make more money — because streaming alone doesn’t make anyone rich. Read more »
Belgian music rights holders want local ISPs to pay 3.4 percent of their subscriber revenue to compensate for music piracy committed by their customers. Those customers, however, could still be sued for file sharing, even after their ISPs paid for it. Read more »
How do you convince people that the future of music is all about access, and not ownership? LimeWire thought it had a solution to this problem with its never-launched Grapevine music subscription service. What did Grapevine have to offer? Take a look for yourself. Read more »
Pandora has established itself as the leading personalized radio service online. A new breed of services is now challenging Pandora by mashing up videos from around the web to personalized video streams, all without spending an arm and a leg on licensing. Read more »
HP hasn’t introduced the rumored music store and streaming service for its line of webOS devices, but it does have an application that currently syncs music to the HP TouchPad tablet and Veer smartphone. HP Play, for Windows and OS X, shows promise and works well. Read more »
Nearly eleven years after Tim Westergen and his colleagues started Pandora, it began trading on the public markets. Westergen has been through hell and back and his story is no different from any entrepreneur who dares to try to capture lightning in a bottle. Read more »
An attempt of music rights holders to press YouTube for more money may have backfired: A European musician just lost a web video award because his video was blocked due to an ongoing conflict between Google and a rights holders group over music royalty rates. Read more »
