music streaming

Apple is close to striking a streaming deal with two of the major music labels that could end up far sweeter for the music industry than what the labels currently get from Pandora, according to two people familiar with the negotiations.

Much has been made in recent weeks of Apple trying to squeeze the labels on terms, and the deals do have Apple paying the labels a per-stream rate that's half of what Pandora pays. But CNET has learned that Apple's planned music service would offer new revenue streams as well.

That includes a quick way for consumers … Read more

Beats Electronics, the company founded by hip-hop producer Dr Dre and music mogul Jimmy Iovine, confirmed this evening it had raised $60 million in funding to spin off its forthcoming streaming music service into a separate entity later this year.

Codenamed "Daisy," the service was revealed in January by Iovine at the AllThingsD Dive Into Media conference. Iovine said he had 100 people working on a "curated" music subscription service he expected to launch this summer.

The funding round was led by Access Industries, an investment group founded by billionaire Len Blavatnik), Marc Rowan, James Packer … Read more

YouTube may tune in to the online music world this year with its own streaming service.

The service would likely offer free music streaming paid for by ads as well as an ad-free subscription option, according to Fortune, which says it was briefed by sources in the record industry and by an unnamed person at Google.

A YouTube representative told CNET that "while we don't comment on rumor or speculation, there are some content creators that think they would benefit from a subscription revenue stream in addition to ads, so we're looking at that."

YouTube's … Read more

Slacker Radio (free) This is a great option for listening to streaming radio, with an intuitive interface that makes it easy to find what you want quickly. To use Slacker you must sign up for an account or log in with your Facebook credentials.

You can search for artists using a field at the top; check out the Music Guide curated by Slacker; or search by genres, stations you've previously listened to, specialty stations, or news, talk, and sports stations. Each selection on the first screen leads to another list where you can swipe to browse selections to find … Read more

Music-streaming services can help you find new artists after giving them suggestions on bands and artists you already like. However, if you want to skip listening until something new plays for you to favorite and look up, try Time Machine on the Hype Machine Web site. The Time Machine feature shows you what was popular over the last five or more years.

Start your music journey by heading to the Time Machine landing page.

Here, you'll find the most popular tracks from last week. But don't stop there; two simple clicks on the year and month that interest … Read more

With its feed, user profiles, and people tab, Spotify is already well on its way to becoming its own social network. And now, the music-streaming service is about to beef up its social aspect even more.

Spotify is in the middle of rolling out a "Follow" tab to replace its "People" tab for desktop users, according to The Next Web. The idea of the "Follow" tab is for people to be able to connect with friends, music artists, and top influential users. The way it works is similar to "liking" an artist … Read more

Streaming radio service Pandora announced today it will introduce a cap on mobile listening as it grapples with rising royalty rates.

Nonpaying users of the service will be limited to 40 hours of free music each month, after which time they will be invited to pay a one-time fee of 99 cents for the remainder of the month or subscribe to the premium service, which features unlimited music and is advertising free. Users will also have the option of listening to unlimited listening via desktop.

Pandora, which eliminated a similar listening limit for desktop users in September 2011, blamed increasing … Read more

DoubleTwist, maker of the popular eponymous music player software, has teamed up with chip maker Qualcomm in an attempt to make wireless streaming easier for Android users. The fruit of their collaboration is dubbed MagicPlay, a new open-source wireless streaming platform that the two companies hope OEMs will integrate into present and future devices.

Built atop Qualcomm's already existing AllJoyn platform, DoubleTwist's MagicPlay can stream to wireless speakers, headphones, televisions, and other devices. Since MagicPlay is open-source, any number of devices or apps could potentially integrate its code and stream to hardware that has a Qualcomm chip and … Read more

TuneIn Radio has an intuitive interface that makes it a snap to listen to streaming radio while you're on the move. It offers more than 50,000 stations and 120,000 shows from around the globe, plus, with the help of your iPhone's GPS, it can even serve up all of your local favorites.

Upon launch, TuneIn lets you drill down to exactly what you want to listen to. You can browse local radio, recommended stations, stations for different languages, and even podcasts. You can also choose from categories like sports or talk radio.

Like other radio-streaming apps, … Read more