Phorus peels back the curtain on its wireless music playback system of the future (exclusive)

Phorus, a stealthy 16-person, Los Angeles-based startup, has plans to make sharing music around the various speakers and devices in your home much easier.

“Phorus?” you say. That’s right. It’s a name you’ll want to remember come January.

The startup is announcing $2 million in its first formal round of funding Tuesday, but plans to reveal, at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, partnerships with manufacturers, which will bring its PlayCast music playback ecosystem … Continue Reading

Zillow, Pandora only fresh IPOs to outlast market slip

Continued uncertainty about financial stability in Europe and a government deadlock in the United States struck publicly-traded equities on Thursday, sending the tech-heavy NASDAQ index down 3.3 percent and below a technical level of support that might indicate future weakness.

The S&P 500 crashed through a level of support — a numerical value that sends a signal to automatic trading algorithms to stop selling stocks — the index held at around 1,150 during a massive … Continue Reading

Top 5 on-demand streaming music services feat. Spotify, MOG and Rdio

There’s a digital music revolution afoot. For the price of a single iTunes album, you can stream a month’s worth of songs from millions of choices while at home or on the go. But there’s so much movement and so much competition that it’s hard to keep track of all the companies worthy of your hard-earned cash.

This week, MOG introduced a new approach to free streaming on its service while Rdio said it planned … Continue Reading

MOG launches free on-demand streaming to better fight Spotify

Subscription music service MOG on Wednesday announced it will launch a free on-demand component to its service tomorrow, in a move that will help it better challenge players like Spotify and Grooveshark.

MOG has been making a name for itself with unlimited streaming since 2009, but it has been slightly less prominent since Spotify’s hyped U.S. launch in July 2011. One of Spotify’s biggest assets is its free service, which lets users hear what Spotify … Continue Reading

Facebook to launch music service at f8

Social networking site Facebook will launch its long-rumored music service at its annual developer conference f8 this year, according to a report by CNBC.

Facebook will not actually host its own music but will partner with other services to stream the music, people familiar with the matter told CNBC’s Jon Fortt. That could bypass a lot of the legal hoops music streaming companies have to jump through and make it easier for Facebook to get … Continue Reading

Spotify hit with vague patent lawsuit by PacketVideo

European music service Spotify has only been available in the U.S. for a few weeks and it’s already being hit with a patent infringement lawsuit from little-known mobile media company PacketVideo.

The patent in question, No. 5,636,276, was filed in 1995 and is listed as a “device for the distribution of music information in digital form.” The vagueness of the patent makes it applicable to almost any streaming music service.

Spotify said it will strongly … Continue Reading

Spotify launches in U.S., users can wait for an invite or pay to get inside

The much-hyped European music service Spotify is launching today in the U.S. We covered the news yesterday, but a few of the more important details, such as pricing and levels or service, weren’t available until now.

Spotify will launch with three tiers for pricing and service. First, there’s Spotify Free, which lets users listen to music from the service on their computer for nothing and pays for itself using advertising. To get access to the … Continue Reading

Spotify launches in U.S. tomorrow (finally)

European music streaming service Spotify will launch in the United States on Thursday.

Individuals who signed up for an invitation on the site when the company announced it was coming to the U.S. last week will be able to access the site. Others can sign up for one of the site’s subscription services.

Spotify had been successful providing cloud-based streaming music in Europe but will face competition from larger companies working on music streaming projects … Continue Reading

Spotify to launch this week with invite-only model?

Much-hyped European music service Spotify plans to launch this week with a slow, invite-only process to add members, according to a Mashable report.

A Spotify spokesperson declined to give any details about the U.S. launch when asked about the report and said the company doesn’t comment on speculation.

Spotify provides cloud-based steaming music in Europe but announced last week that it would hit the U.S. “soon.” The service currently offers three models to European customers: … Continue Reading

Spotify to bring its online music service to the U.S.

European streaming music startup Spotify is finally about to open its service to people in the United States.

U.S. residents can now sign up on the company’s main website to receive an invitation to the online music service when it becomes available. But the company has not disclosed a specific U.S. launch date.

Spotify provides cloud-based streaming music in Europe, but will face competition from larger companies working on music streaming projects once it enters … Continue Reading

Show’s over: Pandora skids in second day of trading

Share prices of online radio service Pandora skidded in its second day of public trading on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE), falling nearly 25 percent from its closing price on Wednesday. Shares are now trading at a price below the company’s initial public offering price of $16.

Shares were trading as high as $26 after the company made its debut on the NYSE on Wednesday. But that slowly tapered off throughout the day, and … Continue Reading

Will Pandora’s mellow IPO put fears of a tech bubble to rest?

Pandora’s trading debut on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) went well, but it wasn’t met with the same fanfare that greeted LinkedIn, a business social network went public in May.

Pandora’s lackluster first day raises questions of whether the rest of the companies planning to go public in the most recent batch of Web 2.0 companies — which also includes  group-buying web service Groupon — will continue to appeal to investors.

Shares of Pandora … Continue Reading

iTunes Match is more convenient than Google Music, but it will cost you

Apple CEO Steve Jobs shed some light on the fabled “iTunes in the cloud” rumors today, but it wasn’t quite what everyone expected.

Jobs announced iTunes Match, a $24.99 per year service that will match music you’ve ripped from CDs with iTunes’ library of 18 million songs, ultimately giving you the ability to listen to your music anywhere via iCloud on iOS devices or PCs.

Jobs made sure to point out that iTunes Match will … Continue Reading

Sweden’s Spotify hits one million paid music subscribers

Spotify, the much-hyped music streaming company from Sweden, announced today that it has reached one million paying subscribers. Unlike most other music startups, which seek to cover the high cost of licensing music from record labels through advertising revenues, Spotify has been insistent about sticking to its freemium model, in which it gives away some services in the hopes of convincing some users to pay for more.

This model has not deterred growth, as paid … Continue Reading

Spotify CEO Daniel Ek vague on U.S. launch, company has 320,000 paid subscribers

Spotify, the much-hyped music streaming company from Sweden, announced today that it has reached one million paying subscribers. Unlike most other music startups, which seek to cover the high cost of licensing music from record labels through advertising revenues, Spotify has been insistent about sticking to its freemium model, in which it gives away some services in the hopes of convincing some users to pay for more.

This model has not deterred growth, as paid … Continue Reading

MOG raises $9.5 million for all-you-can-eat music subscriptions

Spotify, the much-hyped music streaming company from Sweden, announced today that it has reached one million paying subscribers. Unlike most other music startups, which seek to cover the high cost of licensing music from record labels through advertising revenues, Spotify has been insistent about sticking to its freemium model, in which it gives away some services in the hopes of convincing some users to pay for more.

This model has not deterred growth, as paid … Continue Reading