Music Ally

European music streaming service Spotify has gone live, with music from all four major labels, plus indie distributor The Orchard and licensing agency Merlin. It’s available in seven European countries - UK, Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Finland, Norway and Sweden - but not the US or Asia yet. We’ve been taking a look.

As you can see from the homepage screenshot, there are three ways for users to access the site. The Free option offers free access to the site’s content, supported by adverts (the likes of Ford, T-Mobile and Xbox are on board for the launch).

Meanwhile, a Premium subscription costs £9.99 a month, while a Day Pass costs £0.99 per day - both offering unlimited access with no ads. However, the launch so far only includes the Premium subscription - the Free option is still invite-only.

The question of how labels and artists actually make money from YouTube has been a live issue in recent times, but Google’s video-sharing site has just introduced another option.

It’s inserting click-to-buy links below selected videos, with music one of the first categories to get the treatment. So, if you watch the official video for Katy Perry’s `I Kissed A Girl’, there are buttons to buy the song from iTunes or Amazon.

YouTube is also providing Amazon links for games like Electronic Arts’ `Spore’. Google says “this is just the beginning of building a broad, viable e-commerce platform for users and partners on YouTube”. The initiative will apparently also work for user-generated videos - for example, bedroom cover versions of ‘I Kissed A Girl’ - but only if the rightsholder has ‘claimed’ them.

News Corporation has reported that revenues at its Fox Interactive Media unit rose 23% year-on-year to $225 million in the second quarter, although income fell to $6 million from $24 million in the same period, which the company says is due to increased investments. (more…)

There’s been plenty of speculation around just how well (or badly) MVNO Blyk is doing in the UK. The company launched last year with ambitious plans to entice young consumers with free voice-minutes and texts if they agreed to receive adverts on their phones. Now, however, the company has released some hard (more…)