MySpace Music added a few hundred thousand songs to its streaming music service today by signing up four more independent-label aggregators (Nettwerk Music Group, INgrooves, IRIS Distribution, and RoyaltyShare) plus indie label Wind-up Records. This comes at a time when Facebook is still facing hurdles to launching its own music service. → Read More
Facebook’s ongoing effort to launch a free streaming music service is stalled, according to multiple sources familiar with the situation. The company was close to a deal that would bring free streaming music from three of the four big labels (Universal, Sony, EMI) through the Total Music joint venture. But the deal stalled when the lone holdout, Warner Music, refused to participate.
Through most… → Read More
MOG demo’d the next version of their popular music service to me today, and I was impressed. It combines a best of breed interface with free on demand streaming and a Pandora-like music recommendation engine. The trouble is, it may never launch because only two of the four major music labels are supporting it so far.
MOG has a history of doing cool new things around music. The service today… → Read More
At the beginning of each year I traditionally publish a list of my favorite startups and products. This is the fourth year I’ve done this – previous lists: 2006, 2007, 2008. You guys get to pick the winners of the Crunchies – this list is all mine.
This is a list of the products I tend to use daily. Some are for work (Wordpress, Delicious, Zoho, etc.), some are for fun (MySpace Music, Hulu, etc)… → Read More
Last night we released the finalist names for the Crunchies Awards. Vote here for who you think should win. We’ve set up a site that is pretty self-explanatory, with all of the names of each finalist for every category, along with links to their Websites and Crunchbase profiles where you can learn more about each one before voting. The Crunchies represents the best the Web had to offer in 2008… → Read More
Just in via Twitter: Pandora has registered its 20 millionth user. The three-year old music streaming service is trying to hold its own despite tough economics and recent layoffs.
Its music-recommendation engine pumps out personalized radio stations over the Web, and its iPhone app remains one the top free apps on iTunes (currently No. 21). → Read More
Chinese Democracy, the first new Guns N’ Roses album since 1991, debuts tonight at 9 PM PST exclusively on MySpace Music, where fans can listen to it for free.
Well, actually it debuted on BitTorrent a while ago, but we’re not talking about that. Also, the band has previously released two songs, Chinese Democracy and Better, to radio stations and music sites in the past couple of weeks.
But… → Read More
Last Thursday John Battelle sat down with MySpace CEO Chris DeWolfe and Warner Music Group CEO Edgar Bronfman to discuss the future of music.
Some interesting things were said, including remarks by Bronfman that Warner will only sign new artists if they agree to give the label a cut of all possible revenue streams. But the biggest story about the talk, by far, was this: MySpace may be creating a… → Read More
MySpace CEO Chris DeWolfe and Warner Music Group’s Edgar Bronfman take the stage with John Battelle at the Web 2.0 Summit this evening. The topic: The Future Of Music.
The time is ripe. MySpace has launched it’s new MySpace Music initiative; Facebook continues to explore its options.
Our live notes are below:
John Battelle starts things off by noting that MySpace Music continues to not have a… → Read More
MySpace has offered MTV Networks’ EVP Digital Music and Media Courtney Holt the top job at the newly launched MySpace Music, CNET reports. We’ve confirmed this through our own sources, and we believe Holt has all but accepted the position and is in the final stages of contract negotiation.
The hunt for a CEO is nearly a year old. Earlier this year we reported on some of the early candidates. Last… → Read More
Project Playlist is one of the many online music services that have popped up over the last few years. It’s both a search engine and a playlist generator – users search for music that’s located on third party websites and then create playlists which can be embedded elsewhere.
The legality of music search engines is far from clear, as we’ve written about earlier. The company says they pay… → Read More
Our co-editor Erick Schonfeld had the chance yesterday to discuss the significance of MySpace Music and free, ad-supported music in general on WYNC’s Soundcheck, a program produced daily by New York Public Radio.
He was joined by Farhad Manjoo, a columnist for Slate, who took issue in particular with MySpace Music’s user interface. Erick argued that, regardless of its execution, the service… → Read More
It took iTunes nearly three years to get to 1 billion song downloads. MySpace Music streamed a billion songs in just a few days after it launched on September 25. And while this isn’t a fair comparison (songs on MySpace are free to stream; on iTunes users were paying $0.99 each), it’s an incredible milestone.
What MySpace won’t say for some reason is what the billionth song was, or when exactly… → Read More
I’ve spent the last few hours this morning using the new MySpace Music product – searching for music, adding it to playlists and my profile, and listening. It’s far from perfect (more on that below). But MySpace has done something incredible at a big picture level: they’ve created both a compelling music experience for users as well as a realistic, long term business model for labels and artists… → Read More
The new MySpace Music launches tonight for everyone. But like Hulu, another joint venture backed by News Corp. (MySpace’s parent company), it’ll only be for U.S. users. International users will see the new design and functionality, but the new content won’t be there. Hulu is now a year old and most video content is still only watchable in the U.S.
MySpace already has tens of millions of non-U.S. → Read More
The ambitious new MySpace Music joint venture will launch this evening at 9 pm at music.myspace.com. All four major labels – Universal, Warner, Sony and EMI – are on board (EMI was a last minute addition). Also joining the venture is The Orchard, an independent music distributor, and four major publishing companies. Basically, everyone who controls rights to music is part of the new… → Read More
MySpace Music, the joint venture between MySpace and the big music labels, is set to launch this month, and almost certainly sometime this week. MySpace has spent the last few weeks briefing advertisers and the labels in preparation for the launch.
The new service will launch at music.myspace.com but will look completely different than the existing site. Users will be able to stream music for… → Read More
The billboards are up, the CEO search continues, and MySpace Music is set to launch sometime next week. It would have launched last week, but protracted negotiations with EMI to bring it aboard along with the other three music labels is believed to be the cause of the delay. If MySpace Music can launch with EMI it will overnight become a major new force for music distribution on the Web. That… → Read More
It sure looks like MySpace is spending a ton of cash on next week’s launch of the MySpace Music joint venture with the major labels. The first advertising blitz hits Los Angeles (Hollywood on Sunset) and New York (Times Square). The billboards feature artists Lil Wayne, M.I.A., Jonas Brothers and others.
MySpace won’t comment on how much these billboards costs, or what the total market budget… → Read More
Get ready for MySpace Music, because you are going to be hearing a lot about it over the next couple of weeks as it prepares for launch.
The new joint venture, which tosses music rights from the big labels together with the existing MySpace Music property and users, is announcing a number of launch advertising partners this afternoon, including McDonalds, Sony Pictures, State Farm and Toyota. … → Read More
Former Amazon and Facebook executive Owen Van Natta is said to be a top contender for the CEO job of the new MySpace Music joint venture, multiple sources confirmed to us this morning. There are also a number of other candidates still being interviewed. Last month we posted a shortlist with a handful of them.
MySpace Music, an ambitious joint venture between MySpace and top music labels, is set… → Read More
The music industry’s attempts to create its own digital distribution business is like a bad horror movie. It just keeps coming back no matter how badly bludgeoned it gets. Back in 2001 in response to Napster, the music labels launched two competing music download sites, PressPlay and MusicNet (the latter became a white-label music service called MediaNet. Meanwhile, Pressplay was bought by… → Read More
The as-yet unlaunched MySpace Music will likely partner with Amazon to handle all music ecommerce transactions, we’ve heard from multiple sources. Apple and Rhapsody are also bidding for the business, however, and one source says a final decision hasn’t yet been made. The project, which combines the music from three of the four major labels (Sony BMG, Universal Music Group and Warner… → Read More
MySpace‘s upcoming music joint venture with 3 of the 4 major labels, first announced in April, will launch in September (EMI is still a holdout, but from what we hear they may be ready to fold soon). Chris DeWolfe, CEO of MySpace, mentioned that date and gave other details about the joint venture in an interview today with Adam Lashinsky at the Fortune Brainstorm conference in Half Moon Bay… → Read More
We’ve confirmed through sources that MySpace has settled the pending litigation Universal Music, albeit in a very unique way. They’ll create a new MySpace Music joint venture, with equity stakes from all the major labels (except EMI, which is still negotiating). Expect the announcement today, and a launch of the new music property in July or August 2008. The news was first reported by… → Read More
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