There seems to be no end in sight for FlyTunes. Earlier this month, FlyTunes announced a strategic partnership with various content providers - including NPR - to bring their channel count to over 160 channels.

Now they've gone and blown that figure right out of the water.

This week, FlyTunes announced that they've partnered with AccuRadio to make their 320+ radio channels available - for free - to iPhone and iPod touch users.

AccuRadio, which was recently nominated for a Webby award, is among the top Internet radio broadcasters in the world. It was founded by Kurt Hanson, the publisher of RAIN: Radio And Internet Newsletter.

"The move to the mobile Internet has been a big question in the broadcasting industry in the past few years," said FlyTunes CEO Sam Abadir. "Today's announcement ... proves that mobile Internet radio is now ready for prime time -- and I expect terrestrial broadcasters to follow this trend shortly."

The last part of that statement sounds like a not-so-veiled hint of what is to come.

[via iLounge]
Thanks Lee!

Music social network Imeem has acquired Snocap, the struggling digital rights company founded by Napster creator Shawn Fanning.

Terms of the deal were not disclosed, though its believed to be less than $5 million. That's a ridiculous discount to the $25 million that investors (including Morgenthaler Ventures, WaldenVC, and Court Square Ventures) sunk into Snocap.

Imeem, which uses Snocap technology, is gaining the firm's content identification technology and a digital registry, as well as its COO. Snocap's CEO Rusty Rueff is moving on.

Snocap's technology matches digital music to its database of 7 million songs, which then lets Imeem figure out how to allocate portions of its advertising revenues to the music companies who own the copyrights to the songs.

Snocap has been on the chopping block for some time, so it's not necessarily indicative of a massive downward trend. But it's another example of how the business model for digital music - even those that are fairly useful - still has yet to be worked out. And why some of these artificially bloated VC-funded companies haven't quite figured out that whole "sustainable" piece yet.

I'm not saying that Internet Radio isn't a threat to the big-bad broadcast infrastructure. Of course it is, and a looming one at that. But many of these companies haven't quite discovered the business model yet.

And there's still plenty of opportunity to get in on the action.

[TechCrunch, paidContent]

When the FlyTunes service was first unveiled at CES, it had only 50 channels to offer users. Now, a few months later, FlyTunes has received an injection of new content bringing its number of channels to more than 160 channels consisting of new sports, talk, weather and a myriad of music genres.

The free service (which pre-loads Internet Radio content onto your iPhone or iPod Touch) now includes programming from Radio Paradise, SmoothJazz.com, RauteMusik.fm, and 53 music channels from 181.fm.

In the talk category, FlyTunes has added on NPR - yes, NPR - as well as sports content from TheScore.com, and even local weather in the top 15 U.S. markets.

FlyTunes says they've signed on "hundreds of thousands" of users since their January launch, and that the average FlyTunes iPhone user listens for about 8-hours per month. Not too shabby since they're still in their infancy. And now with the channel count rivaling that of either satellite radio service, iPhone/iPod owners have yet another reason why they don't need Sirius or XM.

[FlyTunes]

The rumors that MySpace is teaming up with the big labels are looking to be true. Reuters is reporting that MySpace will unveil a joint music venture with at least three major music companies within 5 days.

News Corp (which owns MySpace), Sony BMG, Universal Music Group, and Warner Music Group will each have a stake in the venture, say Reuters sources.

TechCrunch has confirmed through their own sources that MySpace has settled their lawsuit with Universal. Meanwhile, Silicon Alley Insider has more details in that Universal will receive "a 'huge' cash payment in return for settling the 2006 lawsuit, perhaps in the $100 million range."

"It's really creating a robust monetization component to MySpace and having a focused music effort that could be the MTV of a new generation," said a music industry executive to Reuters who asked not to be identified before the deal is formally announced.

MySpace to become the "new MTV"? As long as MySpace doesn't lose its way (like MTV did), this could pose to be a very significant development in the world of music discovery for future generations. It's up to the execs over at Sirius and XM (and the entire radio industry in general) to make sure they're part of that movement.

[Reuters, TechCrunch, SAI]

UPDATE: PaidContent has more details on the actual service:

• Downloads will be DRM-free
• Video/audio streaming will be ad-supported
• Store will include merchandise and ticketing
• With 30 million uniques monthly and 5 million bands on the site "we're not starting from scratch, it's a big heads start."
• Not just for major music companies, but will be ways for unsigned artists to sign on.
• There will be a mobile content solution as well. (important)
• Pricing? Competitive with iPod? MySpace knows they're playing to an iPod-dominated base. DeWolfe: "Our intent is to make this content very portable and to give our users access to the content in the format that they want. To whatever extent we can leverage our environment via iPods, we'll look to do that."

This is very significant in terms of music industry. Remember, this is a joint venture with the three largest record labels (and possibly soon to include EMI, that's up to EMI to decide apparently). Whatever opportunities the RIAA feels they missed out on with online music - be it the original Napster, or now Apple iTunes - they're going to want to make up ground a lot of lost ground. This will be their avenue.

The New York Post is reporting that Sony BMG and Warner Music Group are gearing up to sign an agreement with MySpace to launch its upcoming digital-music joint venture: MySpace Music.

The agreements could be signed as soon as this week. The service is expected to launch later this year. The labels don't want any upfront money either, they're instead trading content rights in exchange for minority equity stakes in MySpace Music and a revenue-share that News Corp. hopes to generate from the service.

"Everybody's operating with a sense of urgency to try to close it out," said one industry insider to The Post.

The business model? Ad-supported audio mixed with good ol' fashion pay-per-download music.

Silicon Alley Insider points out that the creation of MySpace Music would give the labels their own competitor to iTunes that they so desire. That, no doubt, adds to the "sense of urgency" as the music labels would prefer to control their own digital destiny, rather than have Apple dictate it to them.

"The concept of the joint venture is to bring in all forms of [making money from digital music] and much more tightly integrate them," said another person familiar with the negotiations.

[New York Post via Silicon Alley Insider]
Photo: MySpace CEO Chris DeWolfe and News Corp Chairman Rupert Murdoch speak at the Web 2.0 summit... caption contest anyone?

Remember when I said internet in your car may come sooner than you think? Well guess what, Chrysler is saying it will be the first car company to provide in-car Internet access - availability will come later this year.

The third-largest U.S. automaker will have the capability added to existing vehicles by dealers beginning this year, and later will be factory-installed on the assembly line.

The Washington Post is reporting that Chrysler will use a cellular signal and a mobile phone account to give passengers access to the web.

"We want to make the radio itself a WiFi port," said Frank Klegon, Chrysler's product development chief.

And this is just the beginning of Chrysler's connectivity plans. Hey DOJ, are you watching this?

[Washington Post via Autoblog, Engadget]

Here's a teaser video introducing a new system called StreamSmart. The project is still in the very early stages, but Orbitcast has learned some details behind the StreamSmart system and what's to come.

Essentially, the goal of StreamSmart is to allow streaming of Sirius, XM and Internet Radio to multiple platforms on various devices.

Platforms being targeted are Apple iPhone, Windows Mobile, BlackBerry, Nokia, Windows, Mac OSX, Linux, XBox360, Web-based and more. StreamSmart acts as the backend, while each platform would have its own client to serve up the Sirius and XM streams.

More on this soon...

Facebook has approached the major music labels about launching its own music service, according to a Financial Times report yesterday, citing those famous "people familiar with the matter."

This news comes on the heals of a similar effort by social networking rival MySpace, which reportedly has approached The Big Four music labels to launch a "MySpace Music" service.

Both MySpace, and more recently Facebook, have served as excellent promotional platforms for artists (wait... isn't that what radio is supposed to be doing?). Facebook, in November, introduced a way for artists to create their own home pages similar to MySpace. The service also links to iTunes and offers applications from online music services such as iLike, Last.FM and Pandora.

The move to transform social networking sites from promotional platforms to revenue generators, some would say, is most definitely at the forefront of thought for record label executives.

Social networking sites let users share playlists and recommend artists to their circle of friends. And as marketing/sales goes, nothing beats recommendations. Satellite radio (and most broadcast media) is still only serve as a one-way communication, lacking the interactivity and personalization that a new generation of music listeners have become accustomed to.

This level of engagement is something that satellite radio desperately needs. The question is, how?

[Financial Times, chart courtesy of WSJ]

Side note: If you want to link up on Facebook and actually (gasp) see what I look like, go ahead and check out my page here.

The Wall Street Journal is reporting that social networking giant MySpace is in the process of partnering with the Big Four music groups to become an online music destination.

It's reportedly part of a larger effort to position MySpace more of a media company, and further distinguish itself from Facebook.

Tentatively dubbed MySpace Music, the music service would let users listen to free, streaming music, and purchase DRM-free MP3 downloads, which can be played on virtually any portable device, including the iPod.

The streaming service would be advertising supported and revenue would be split with the labels.

[Wall Street Journal]
Photo courtesy of Robert Scoble.

Yahoo may be fending off "bearhugs" from Microsoft, but it's their music biz that's getting the axe in the shortterm. The company announced today that it will discontinue its Yahoo Music Unlimited subscription service and will transfer its customer base to RealNetworks' Rhapsody service.

The process is expected to begin mid-2008, when subscribers will be guided through migrating their current libraries over to Rhapsody's system. Eventually (though we don't know when) subscribers will be expected to, ahem, "upgrade" to Rhapsody's pricing plans.

Only problem is, Yahoo's rates range from $5.99/month (full year pre-pay) to $8.99/month and Rhapsody memberships start at $12.99/month.

Yahoo will integrate Rhapsody into their music portal, and the two also intend to collaborate on other digital music services such as music downloads.

[CNET]