finance

Spotify is close to closing a $100 million financing round that would value the company at a little more than $3 billion, sources tell The Wall Street Journal.

The capital would come from multiple investors, including Goldman Sachs, although the Journal did not identify who the other investors were.

CNET has contacted Spotify for comment and will update this report when we learn more.

In a funding round last year, the music-streaming service raised about $100 million from venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers and Russian investment firm DST Global, to give it a $1 billion valuation. More … Read more

This can hardly be encouraging news: Nokia's third-quarter financial results show the number of handsets it sold down by 22 percent compared to last year and 1 percent on the quarter before.

The company said Thursday it sold 82.9 million handsets in the quarter, with revenue from phone sales falling by 34 percent compared to Q3 2011.

Nokia's overall revenue also dropped during the quarter, to 7.239 billion euros ($9.48 billion) -- a decrease of 19 percent year on year, and 4 percent quarter on quarter -- compared with $12.2 billion in the third … Read more

Microsoft's Windows 8 apps are a decidedly mixed bag so far. But one group of apps shows how the new environment can shine with the right software.

I haven't been too impressed with many of the apps Microsoft has created for Windows 8. Some, such as Music and Video, are designed mostly to get you to buy stuff from the company, offering only minimal support for playing your own songs and videos.

Others apps, such as Mail, People, and Messaging, aren't bad but still seem half-baked and in need of further refinements. Mail, for example, still doesn'… Read more

Financially troubled OnLive said today it plans to continue operating under the OnLive name and promised users that its services will "continue without interruption."

The announcement comes two days after reports of a major corporate shakeup in which the cloud gaming company suddenly fired all of its employees and was allegedly prepping for a bankruptcy filing. The company later confirmed that the company assets had been sold to an unnamed suitor.

The company said in a statement today that all customer purchases would remain intact:

Not ready to dive into invoicing software that requires hours of fussing to get everything set up correctly? Invoicera seeks to simplify the invoicing task by creating an easy-to-use Web interface for users.

This service offers several pricing plans, ranging from literally $0 to $99.95. You're probably wondering what users on the $0 plan get. Well, it's actually a lot of functionality for the zero cost. You can make unlimited invoices, so that's a huge bonus. There's a limit of three clients, and there's no ability to auto bill clients or add … Read more

Twitter started prioritizing money talk on its site today with the announcement of "cashtags." These are clickable ticker symbols, like $AAPL, $GOOG, and $FB, which take users to search results about the company's finances and stocks.

Twitter made the announcement via a tweet in which it wrote: "Now you can click on ticker symbols like $GE on http://twitter.com to see search results about stocks and companies."

According to The Verge, the cashtags come on the heels of other user-created Twitter innovations, such as the @reply and the #hashtag. (The hashtag, for instance, evolved … Read more

Trying to stick within your budget is no easy task when you're guessing at your balance. Mint.com's free personal finance service and companion mobile apps change that.

After giving Mint.com access to your bank, credit card, and investment accounts, the password-protected Mint.com app can monitor your accounts, your budget, and even your cash flow. The app presents your money matters in summary form, with the capability to drill down to the item level of a purchase. Follow the trail to the end to edit an item's transaction details or jot down notes or tags. … Read more

Just when you thought it couldn't get worse for Nokia, Moody's steps in with a downgrade of its debt rating.

Moody's lowered its rating to junk status, citing earnings pressure and cash burn that is larger than the firm previously expected. The move comes after Nokia said yesterday that it would cut 10,000 jobs and warned its second-quarter financial result would again disappoint investors.

The downgrade is just the latest blow for Nokia, which is quickly seeing its prospects dim. A lower rating means it will cost more to issue debt, and the company will have … Read more

Metalogic's Finance Explorer is a simple, free, open-source tool for managing your personal finances. It's compatible with Quicken, Microsoft Money, and other financial programs. It supports OFX, OFC, and QIF formats, so it can import and manage transaction data from most banks, a huge time-saver over entering everything manually. It can manage your checking, saving, credit, investment, loan, and cash accounts, in any number. It can download stock quotes from online sources, display monthly transactions or net worth, and help you set up a personal budget using an intuitive process. We sampled a fully portable version of Finance … Read more