Web-based streaming music provider Spotify is reportedly preparing to launch a new service that will add new radio and content discovery elements to its portfolio. Citing multiple unnamed sources, Bloomberg on Thursday reported that Spotify is developing a new online radio service that will compete directly with Pandora. Due to launch by the end of this year, the ad-supported service will allow users to stream unlimited music through Spotify’s software, and the service may launch with new music content that is not currently available to Spotify customers. It is unclear exactly how the new offering will differ from Spotify Radio, which was unveiled late last year as an artist-based streaming radio service available for free to all Spotify users. The company’s current core product allows Spotify’s 10 million users to stream music from its online catalog in an iTunes-like player that also allows subscribers to search for content, create playlists and share content with friends.

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Popular European streaming music service Spotify could launch in the U.S. as soon as next week, AllThingsD’s Peter Kafka speculates. Spotify announced earlier this week that it would be taking its talents to the U.S., but it gave no indication as to how soon the launch might occur. AllThingsD says the smart money is on a launch next week, and the blog has historically been accurate with its coverage of the Stockholm-based music start-up. Kafka reaffirms that Spotify only has deals inked with three of the four major U.S. record labels, but he says a deal with Warner Music Group is close enough to being signed that it should be completed ahead of a launch next week. Like Microsoft’s Zune service or Rhapsody, Spotify allows users to stream music on demand, create playlists and more. The service uses a freemium model that permits ad-supported content to be streamed to desktop computers for free, and then offers mobile streaming, playlist sharing and sheds the ads for paid subscribers. Spotify has not yet revealed pricing for the U.S. market.

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Custom music steaming company Spotify on Wednesday announced that it will soon launch its popular service in the U.S. The company has been rumored to be in negotiations with major U.S. music labels for more than a year now, and it looks like those negotiations finally panned out. ”The award-winning music service that’s taken Europe by storm will soon be landing on US shores,” the company said in a statement on its website. “Millions of tracks ready to play instantly, on your computer and your phone.” In markets where the service is currently available, Spotify allows users to stream music on demand for free to PCs. For a monthly fee, the service adds additional features and supports more devices, such as the iPhone, iPad and Android devices. Pricing and other details for the U.S. market have not yet been announced.

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CBS-owned Last.fm announced on Monday that it will soon discontinue its free ad-supported streaming music service for cell phones and home entertainment devices. Last.fm is a custom Internet radio service that competes with the likes of Pandora and Slacker Radio. The service currently streams to computers, to cell phones and to various home entertainment devices such as DVD players and set-top boxes, with two available subscription models — a free ad-supported version and an ad-free version for $3 per month. As of February 15th, free streaming to mobile devices and to home entertainment devices will be shut off, with the exception of Xbox 360 and Windows Phone 7 devices, and only paid subscribers will be able to utilize the service. Delivering ad-supported streaming services to mobile and other non-PC devices is not practical, Last.fm stated in a blog post, so the company will no longer offer the option. Free ad-supported streaming to Last.fm’s website will remain, however, as will free streaming to the Last.fm desktop PC app. The shift in strategy now creates a new speed bump for the service, as Last.fm’s biggest competitors will continue to offer free streaming options for mobile and other devices.

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We recently dedicated a Throwback Thursday to Winamp and, as many of you were quick to point out, the product is still alive and quite awesome. Today, via a blog post, Winamp maker Nullsoft reminded us just how awesome their product is with the release of a Winamp beta for Android. The media player, which will work on handsets running Android 2.1 or higher, offers: seamless synchronization with Winamp’s desktop suite, wireless syncing with your desktop, persistent player controls, widgets, and scrobbling with last.fm. Oh, and in case you were curious… the player still lets you know that it “really whips the llamas ass” when you first launch it. What are you waiting for? You know you’re curious. Hit up the Android Market, grab the goods, and let us know what you think.

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It’s pretty incomprehensible that until about two weeks ago, I had never used a piece of Sonos equipment. Heard about it, and read about it? Sure, but never used it. What MP3s did for personal audio enjoyment 5 years ago, Sonos does for your home, office, or wherever you want today, ingeniously creating a seamless and practically unlimited expandable system. Sonos is literally one of the coolest things I’ve seen in years; not because they reinvented the wheel (even though they kind of did in some places), but because it works.

Our digital lives are consumed by software updates, OTAs, custom ROMs, and promised OS upgrades, and because of their absence in Sonos’ system the entire experience is completely refreshing. You literally, in the words of Ron Popeill, “set it and forget it.” Once you unbox the sucker you have access to potentially limitless amounts of music spanning dozens of genres and styles.

We were sent two Sonos S5s, which are incredibly powerful units, and include speakers, subwoofers, and the ability to transmit/receive data and signal in addition to a ZoneBridge and Sonos Controller 200. If you want your S5 in the room where your internet router is, great, you just plug it in, and off you go. If you don’t have Ethernet in the room you’d like to host the system in, you can simply buy a ZoneBridge ($99), which will bridge your wireless network to your Sonos base for you. From there on out it is as simple as pairing the additional components.

I started off setting up the ZoneBridge to my network, I then added a Sonos S5 in the kitchen two rooms away. Set up was a breeze. I ran the Sonos software, touched a button or two on the S5, and it paired immediately and connected to my network. Once networked, I had instant access to my Pandora account, Last.fm account, Rhapsody account, Napster account, and Sirius radio account, in addition to whatever music was on my network. Instantly. Before I got too excited and immersed in some music from Billboard charts from 1995, I decided to add the other S5 to the network; this time unit was headed for the living room. The second S5 also seamlessly connected in about one minute. I now had independent control over the music/volume in the kitchen as well as the music/volume in the living room from my computer. So wild. If you’re having a small get together, or raging party, and want the music to play all over your apartment or house, you can simply link the zones together — all your zones will play the exact same thing perfectly in sync. You can also control the volume of linked zones together or independently.

We’re not done…there’s more. Sonos’ new controller is so thoughtfully designed that I’m really not sure what to compare it to. It seems like it should cost $1,000 instead of $349; it even includes a capacitive screen. You have the ability to control the entire system — including changing your playlists, music queue, stations, volume, zones, and everything else — right from the controller. Computer not required. But, Sonos went even further. They basically replicated the entire experience they offered on the remote into an iPhone application. This transforms your iPod Touch or iPhone into another controller, complete control over everything, computer not required (you need to be in range of your WiFi network though, duh).

In terms of the actual music, the Sonos S5 unit itself sounds absolutely amazing and really packs a punch. For something that can be literally picked up and plugged in anywhere it’s pretty remarkable. During the tests I didn’t ever miss having my actual home speaker systems hooked up, the S5s sounded that good.

While it’s great that the hardware and wireless network side of things work so incredibly well, what good would all that be without quality music sources, right? Here’s how Sonos’ music breaks down:

• If you have a PC or Mac on your network, Sonos can make use of any existing library pending of course the music is DRM-free. This includes all of your iTunes music, ripped music, downloaded music — whatever is stored locally on your computer
• Rhapsody (subscription based access with free trial, streaming)
• Napster (subscription based access with free trial, streaming)
• Pandora (streaming)
• Last.fm (streaming)
• SIRUIS (streaming)
• Internet radio (25,000 stations, streaming)

All in all I loved listening to a seemingly endless catalog of music that I could tailor to my daily routines, activities, and moods. Times when you’d normally just forget about turning on tunes dissolve away when there’s a Sonos remote nearby — hopefully the neighbors aren’t too mad at me. Check out some more photos in our gallery, and definitely hit up Sonos directly to learn more!

Click on over to our Sonos Music System gallery!

Ready for round 2, ladies and gents? A tipster just dropped a new handful of iTunes 9 screenshots in our inbox and while their authenticity cannot be confirmed, they’re certainly worth mentioning. Earlier this month we scooped a whole bunch of info surrounding the imminent release of iTunes 9 and this new round of screenshots, allegedly of an early iTunes 9 beta, may help support some of the info we exclusively detailed. The first notable feature depicted in the new shots is the Facebook integration. The images show the ability to create a new playlist and then share it on Facebook. The Facebook entry that subsequently appears on the user’s FB wall will include an iTunes link, presumably pointing to the shared playlist found on an iTunes page. Up next… How about some third-party device support? Yeah, very un-Apple but maybe Jobs & Co. have decided to turn over a new leaf. Again, these shots are not confirmed but the wait won’t be much longer — all will be revealed in early September when Apple holds its music event. Hit the jump for the images along with a screenshot of Facebook displaying a shared iTunes playlist.

Thanks, nicuk!

Sad news from custom internet radio land as Last.fm announces some big changes that are sure to upset plenty of listeners. While the company has never provided an official API in the past, it has turned a blind eye to third-party developers with apps that stream Last.fm content to computers and/or mobile devices. No more — according to an official statement, the CBS-owned company will be releasing a formal streaming API and it will only be available to developers with an API account. Fair enough. The problem comes in with the following bullet point however:

You won’t be allowed to use our API to stream to mobile phones. This is unfortunately a limitation of some of our licensing agreements. Again, we may be able to make an exception to this if you talk to us directly.

Last.fm traffic is up over 50 percent YoY and this is due in no small part to the release of its official iPhone application. As such, we imagine the company is well aware of the potential mobile streaming has. At the same time, Last.fm has plenty of bosses to answer to and we imagine this new policy was handed down from above. It is our understanding that apps such as Flipside for BlackBerry and other apps that only scrobble locally-played music will continue to operate just fine. The problem lies in apps like Mobbler for S60 and Pocket Scrobbler for Windows Mobile as they can kiss streaming functionality goodbye… Unless the devs can convince Last.fm to “make an exception”, ie fork over some cash to appease CBS. The iPhone and Android apps, for those concerned, will continue to work fine as they were developed in-house.

[Via Giz]

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Fringers, start your updating. The Israeli mobile comms company has just announced the release of a new version of its popular application that brings Last.fm streaming and friend-monitoring to the fring app. Users can now enjoy custom streaming radio stations while chatting with friends without ever having to leave the fring application. All of your favorite types of Last.fm stations are available and Love/Ban functions are supported as well. Sweet! For the time being, Last.fm via fring is not available on the platform that needs it most – the iPhone – but hopefully we’ll see an update soon. Since S60 allows third-party applications to be minimized, Mobbler can easily be used to stream Last.fm while a user is chatting in fring. With the iPhone on the other hand, where the Last.fm app cannot be sent to the background while the user is fringing (yes, we know Backgrounder can remedy this on jailbroken iPhones), the addition of of Last.fm streaming would certainly be welcome. Hit the jump for a very peculiar video that sums up the latest version of fring nicely.

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Two of the biggest names in the new wave of personalized internet radio, Pandora and Last.fm, have announced new mobile offerings this week that are sure to please subscribers. For those who aren’t familiar with these services, we’ll give you quick rundowns: Pandora is a free ad supported service (with an ad-free subscription option) that delivers custom radio stations based on the tonal qualities of each song. The user starts by entering an artist or song and Pandora continues the stream with songs of similar musical quality as determined by a panel of 50 analysts who have spent years listening to and cataloging songs. Last.fm on the other hand, is a similar free service (with enhanced subscription option) but it has a much bigger focus on social networking. It creates custom stations with similar tracks like Pandora, but relies on socially-applied tags when offering up new songs.

On to the topic at hand, Pandora released an official Windows Mobile client that brings the Music Genome Project straight to the hands of HTC Touch and Motorola Q9c users. The client is completely free and it allows users to create and stream Pandora stations to their Windows mobile handsets via the phone’s data connection. Moving away from Windows mobile, Last.fm announced that it has launched its first official Symbian client via a carrier. Vodafone customers with S60 handsets can now enjoy Last.fm for free on the go. S60 users did already have a free Last.fm streaming option in Mobbler but it’s nice to see Last.fm embrace S60 and offer an official client. All in all, it’s been a good week for smartphone users but we still have a long way to go – how about a couple of BlackBerry clients fellas?

[Via All About Symbian]

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As we near the end of 2008 and approach the holiday season, layoffs get harder and harder to swallow. No one wants to close out the year with workforce cuts but sometimes it’s just inevitable. Such is the case with CBS Interactive, which announced internally yesterday that it would be undergoing a reorg attached to what is rumored to be just south of 300 layoffs. While CBS has not announced yesterday’s move publicly, the layoffs were estimated to account for between 10 and 14 percent of its workforce. CBS Interactive properties include CNET, CBS.com, CBSSports.com, CBSNews.com, GameSpot, BNET, last.fm, TV.com and CHOW. Despite the fact that CBS Interactive’s combined traffic rose significantly in 2008 and its advertising has remained strong, those at the top have deemed yesterday’s cuts a necessity. Whether or not that is the case remains to be seen but what’s done is done and our sympathies go out to all those affected. Hit the jump for the full internal email from CBS Interactive head Quincy Smith and CNET boss Neil Ashe.

Team,

As we come to the end of 2008, we have a lot to be proud of. CBS Interactive is the best online content network for information and entertainment. Our properties are expanding, advertisers are capitalizing on our properties and their scale, and we are positioned well to continue to grow. As we prepare for 2009 and beyond, we’d like to update you on this progress, announce some organizational changes and comment on the broader market environment and how it impacts CBS Interactive.

Progress

CBS Interactive is the 8th largest Internet network in the world. Our combined traffic is up nearly 30% since we closed the merger this summer. CNET, CBSSports.com, BNET, GameSpot, TV.com, CBS.com, last.fm, and CHOW have each had record traffic within the past three months. Our commitment to our users is paying off.

Advertisers have noticed. We have recently signed and announced deals across several of our properties with Microsoft, AT&T, Intel, Bertolli, EA, and GM. In these challenging economic times, marketers are consolidating their efforts with their best partners. Our properties, our audiences, our ideas and our insights will continue to differentiate us in the marketplace.

Finally, we have contributed to and benefited from the TV and Radio divisions of CBS. We’ve done nearly 1,500 purpose-driven promotions to our properties on Broadcast TV, Radio and local TV Stations; CHOW and GameSpot content is running on the CBS Outernet; and CNET ran a major consumer campaign in markets like New York and San Francisco through CBS Outdoor. CBS Interactive is also a key partner to CBS Television Network for major broadcast events. In just the last week, we featured complementary content for events including The Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show, the Grammy Nominations and the SEC Championship.

Moving forward, we have a lot to look forward to. Events like CES, The Grammys, and March Madness on Demand are all just around the corner. Each represent huge cross-platform opportunities where CBS Interactive will again help complete the experience with coverage on air, online, and on mobile for our audiences.

Organizational Promotions and Changes

As we enter 2009, we are making some changes to our organizational structure to capitalize on audience and advertiser overlaps. We are also making some changes to key functions so that we can realize the benefits of our position in the marketplace. These changes mark another significant milestone in our integration, as we fine-tune our organization to best take advantage of the power of our entire network.

Sports, Games and Music

We are combining our Sports, Games and Music properties into a single group led by Steve Snyder. Steve has tremendous product and leadership experience and an enthusiasm for each of these categories. In addition, Tom Jones will be moving over from CNET to head-up the sales efforts for this group. Within the group, our talented senior leaders including Jason Kint, Rich Calacci, Jaci Hays, Kevin Menard, Felix Miller, Doug Schmidt and others will report to Steve and to Tom.

Entertainment & Lifestyle

We are also moving our Lifestyle properties, CHOW and UrbanBaby, to the Entertainment group (TV.com, CBS.com, The CBS Audience Network and TheInsider.com) to capitalize on the similarities in audience and advertisers. This group will continue to be led by Anthony Soohoo with sales led by Ken Lagana. We’re excited to see the innovation that will come from this group in 2009.

Technology & News

Under the continued leadership of Joe Gillespie, our Technology & News division will bring CBSNews.com and CNET News.com into a single CBS Interactive News Group. Each site will maintain its own brand identity, while benefiting from shared resources in design, product and engineering to deliver deeper and more comprehensive coverage of major stories and events. Led by Mark Larkin, with Dan Farber as Editor-in-Chief, CBS News.com and CNET News.com will also have the opportunity to share content and collaborate on stories for the benefit of their unique audiences.

CBS Interactive Marketing

We are bringing together our key marketing functions into a new group called CBS Interactive Marketing led by Mickey Wilson. The group brings together expertise from across the organization so that we can capitalize on our biggest opportunities, and elevate the company to be a strategic marketing partner whose products, consumer insights, and ad innovations are critical to our clients’ long-term success. They will establish the company as the standard for premium content online, and define and evolve brand strategies to capture the biggest opportunities for audience and revenue growth through market planning, insights and execution.

CBS Interactive Business Development

We are also bringing together all of our business development activities. This group will be led by Mike Marquez. Mike and his team will be responsible for the development of all new partnerships, investments, and acquisitions. They will be charged with taking advantage of knowledge sharing across the whole company to ensure that we are the strategic partner of choice for the industry.

Market Conditions

As you know the general economic environment continues to be a challenge. We have always been very aggressive about managing our costs, and that requirement is even more critical now than it has ever been. We believe this new, more efficient organizational structure will produce better results for CBS Interactive, and also result in lower operating costs. It is always very difficult to make these kinds of reductions, but they come after a thorough review of how we are organized and how we operate, and what best serves our many users, advertisers and employees.

CBS Interactive is a special place because of you, and we thank each of you for what you have done, are doing, and will do to exceed the expectations of the tens of millions of people who come to our properties every day.

Today, we sit in a great position. People seek out our brands because we provide them with the information and entertainment they want and need, and marketers seek us out because of the powerful audiences we attract. We are positioned to grow in 2009 and beyond.

Best,
-q, NA

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Talk about great reads. Muxtape founder Justin Ouellette finally let the cat out of the bag today and published a lengthy report of his recent trials and tribulations. For outsiders looking in, reading about dealings with the unmitigated disaster that is the music industry is like a guilty pleasure. Rage seems to build with each passing paragraph and one can’t help but think, “are they really this stupid?” Ouellette’s recount of his experiences in recent history fits the mold perfectly. The behind the scenes plan for Muxtape was anything but ill-intentioned; Ouelette had some pretty big ideas and spent a great deal of time reaching out to labels in an effort to move music consumption forward in a very symbiotic manner. In fact in the midst of an extended series of meetings with major labels that seemed to be progressing, albeit slowly, the RIAA struck without warning and dropped an axe that would force Muxtape to go offline. It registered a complaint with Amazon Web Services, Muxtape’s host, that required Muxtape to dump a launrdy list of content within one business day or risk having his data deleted and servers shut down. The rest, as they say, is history.

Ouelette has plans to relaunch as a service geared exclusively toward bands:

The new Muxtape will allow bands to upload their own music and offer an embeddable player that works anywhere on the web, in addition to the original muxtape format. Bands will be able to assemble an attractive profile with simple modules that enable optional functionality such as a calendar, photos, comments, downloads and sales, or anything else they need.

This is a far cry from the original Muxtape model and it will likely have a much more difficult climb in terms of being widely adopted. Here at BGR, we’ll certainly be keeping an eye out for the relaunch and we wish Ouellette all the success in the world. As for the RIAA and music industry in general, it is becoming increasingly difficult to support any means of music distribution that puts money in their pockets. The dilemma of course is in order to financially support the bands you enjoy, you are also feeding the hand that bites. Talk about a catch 22. Whatever, music industry. Keep doing things your way because it seems to really be working out well for you. We’re sure people will be lining up in droves to buy music on microSD cards. You know, just like how we all went running out to get their hands on Ringles. That went over really well.

Do yourself a favor and hit the read link.

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It looks like the big guys aren’t the only ones feeling the wrath of the RIAA these days, and it’s only bound to get worse. Muxtape, a service that allows users to upload music from their personal libraries to create an online mixtape, currently services less than 90,000 unique visitors per month according to Compete. That won’t keep it under the RIAA’s radar it would appear, as the service went down yesterday with the note “Muxtape will be unavailable for a brief period while we sort out a problem with the RIAA” on its homepage. A post on the Muxtape blog provides the following message:

No artists or labels have complained. The site is not closed indefinitely. Stay tuned.

It’s funny; rather than embrace this newer wave of online music providers, it appears that labels and the RIAA are intent on destroying these emerging technologies and completely eliminating new revenue streams that have the potential to become massive. By putting a fair royalty scheme in place, the RIAA stands to pull in hundreds of millions of dollars in the short-term and this figure would only increase as internet radio stations and other online music sites continue to gain momentum. Instead, the RIAA is trying to run these sites into the ground in order to maintain the current power structure – even if that means losing out on all of this new money. Users of sites like Muxtape aren’t going to replace their “free” listening habits with purchases, they’re going to find other off-shore sites with similar functionality. Apparently for the RIAA,  “nothing” is better than “something” when that “something” helps illustrate just how useless the current record label model is these days.

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As traffic to Pandora continues to climb at an impressive rate, far more steep than that of competitor Last.fm as seen in the chart above, the popular custom internet radio provider may be a breath away from closing its doors. Why, you might ask? The answer is not very far from being obvious these days. Wherever there is an emerging revolution in the realm of music consumption, loved by many yet still on the brink of defeat; the RIAA is never far from the scene. Pandora’s current woes fit the mold precisely. Pandora usage is at all all-time high and usage increased by almost two million visits per month from June to July alone, yet elevated royalty rates are making it nearly impossible for the company to stay afloat. After last year’s decision that internet radio provider per-song royalty rates would double there has been an ongoing battle between providers and SoundExchange, an unincorporated division of the RIAA tasked with collecting royalties from digital providers such as satellite and internet radio. The decision determined that the rate would increase incrementally from .08¢ per song per listener in 2006 to .19¢ per song per listener by 2010. While tiny fractions of a penny seem insignificant, they add up quickly. Pandora projects that it will pay out about $17 million this year, or a staggering 70% of its revenue, in royalties. Long story short, it is losing money. The problem is even worse for smaller internet radio providers, where increased royalty rates are expected to amount to between 100% and 300% of annual revenues. Translation: By way of SoundExchange and lawmaker support, the RIAA would rather wipe internet radio off the map with outrageous royalty rates than find a fair way to make some money for its clients (labels and, theoretically, musicians). Why is that? There is no way for us to say but as per-song performance royalties are positioned to wipe internet radio off the map, it should be noted that terrestrial radio pays no such fees.

Tim Westergren, Founder of Pandora, had this to say to the Washington Post:

We’re funded by venture capital. They’re not going to chase a company whose business model has been broken. So if it doesn’t feel like its headed towards a solution, we’re done.

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S60 users: If you happen to see developer Michael Coffey walking down the street, stop him and buy him a drink. For years now, Symbian smartphone users have wondered why they couldn’t feel the Last.fm love. Windows mobile has a streaming client, the iPhone had MobileScrobbler (and now an official Last.fm app) within a few months of its release… What about S60?! Well it’s about time you stop your crying and head over to Mobbler’s Google Code page because this last update was a doozy. That’s right people, Last.fm station streaming is now supported! Artist, tag, recommended and even the loved station for subscribers can be streamed right to your handset. No, it’s not the most beautiful UI in the world but it gets the job done and it does it well. There is still some functionality to be added such as the ability to love / ban as you listen but this is going to do more than enough to tide over the angry mob of Last.fm users who have been waiting to listen on the go with their S60 handsets. Good show Coffey, good show.

[Via adonismobile]

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