Music Ally

The first handset running Google’s Android operating system went on sale in the US yesterday. The T-Mobile G1 didn’t quite see iPhone-esque queues around the block by most accounts, but it’s still created plenty of buzz.

Several music-related apps have been released on its Android Market store already, including Imeem, Shazam and MySpace. Review site AppVee Android Apps has posted video walkthroughs - the Imeem one is above, and the Shazam and MySpace ones are below. See what you think.

Shazam

MySpace

This post on Hypebot made us snort tea all over our keyboard, so we wanted to share it with you. It’s from one of the blog’s readers, explaining why indie bands aren’t boycotting their MySpace profiles in protest at their lack of representation on the just-launched MySpace Music site:

“i’ve had sex with girls i didn’t like. it’s not that wrong to update your myspace and still be unhappy with the operation. it may seem like a passive aggressive approach, but sometimes people keep a profile active in a service to continue promoting their band…regardless of how self serving the platform has become. it’s hard to deny the strong presence of myspace….it reminds me of ex-girlfriends i had that were so hot i couldn’t stop sleeping with them even after i broke up with them because they were so scandalous. it was hard to leave.”

That’s certainly one way of putting it…

With all the fuss surrounding the launch of MySpace Music, it’s easy to forget that the social network already has its own record label, MySpace Records. However, it does, and has just announced the signing of R&B singer Christina Milian, who was dropped by former label Def Jam a couple of years ago.

Her new single, ‘Us Against The World’, will be released on MySpace itself on 6th October, with an album following next year. It’ll be interesting to see if MySpace runs any interesting promotional gimmicks around it - for example, following in the footsteps of the free album giveaway it ran for Pennywise earlier this year.

It’ll also be interesting to see if Milian’s songs and album are heavily promoted on MySpace Music itself, when the streaming/downloads service is up and running.

MySpace Music’s launch, originally scheduled for yesterday, then moved to Thursday of this week, may get pushed back a week or more, Silicon Alley Insider reports. This leads to further speculation that the
delay is caused by the company’s desire to conclude a deal with EMI to offer its catalogue through the service. Deals are already in place with Universal Music, Warner Music and Sony BMG.

All eyes are on this week’’s launch of MySpace Music. It’s expected that we’ll hear today that McDonald’’s, Toyota and State Farm Insurance have agreed to advertise on the service, which will offer streaming access to deep catalogue from Universal, Sony BMG, Warner Music, and a few independents. With Amazon providing the back-end, the service will also sell unprotected MP3 downloads, ringtones, and (more…)

A new survey from Synovate claims that 58% of adults worldwide don’t know what online social networking is, while of those who do, 36% are actually losing interest in it.

The survey quizzed more than 13,000 people in 17 developed nations, although it didn’t include anyone under the age of 18 - one of the keenest demographics for social networking. In the US, the proportion of users losing interest was even higher, at 45%.

With the music industry so excited about social networking, what’s your view? Are we leaping onto a bandwagon as users leap off? Or could music be one of the features that actually keeps people interested in MySpace, Facebook and their rivals?

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…)

We reported yesterday on MySpace saying its layoffs weren’t really layoffs, but just natural efficiencies at the end of employees’ review periods. However, it’s interesting that the same day, MySpace announced five new executive hires, perhaps in an attempt to show its growth intentions. They’re pretty big names too: new SVP of engineering Manu Thapar comes from Yahoo, SVP of marketing Angela Courtin from MTV Networks, SVP of customer (more…)

MySpace is shedding some staff, but the company denies it’’s actual layoffs, but is instead performance driven. (more…)

With much speculation around the likely launch date of the new MySpace Music service, we’ve now got confirmation from the horse’s mouth, so to speak. CEO Chris DeWolfe says the new joint venture will launch in September, despite having only signed up three of the four major labels. (more…)