Streaming Music

Update: New reports say Spotify will officially launch in the US on Thursday, July 14 at 8 a.m. EDT! If you had signed up for an invite on Spotify's website, chances are high you may receive access to the American beta test of the service.

We've been waiting with headphones ready for the US launch of cloud-based music streaming app Spotify. Sweden-based Spotify updated its website today to announce its impending US arrival. With the tagline "Any track, any time, anywhere. And it's free!" This just may be the music solution we've been waiting for. Search for a favorite song and actually listen to the track in full at that moment.

Currently only available in European markets, Spotify allows users to stream music of their choice while connected to the Internet and save songs on a mobile device or computer to listen to while offline. Similar to other streaming services, Spotify offers a free version with the occasional ad or premium options with a paid subscription. Details on the US launch date are still murky, but, of course, there are other online music services to keep your head bopping in the meantime.

We've been waiting for Apple and Google to launch cloud music services for a while now, but Amazon beat them both to the punch last night with the launch of Amazon Cloud Drive and Cloud Player — an online storage system for your music, movies, photos, and documents.

Coming with 5GB of free storage, you can upgrade for $1 per GB ($20 for 20GB a year), but Amazon is offering a pretty sweet deal for the remainder of the year — buy an MP3 album on Amazon.com and get upgraded to 20GB of storage for a year. Additionally, if you buy any music from Amazon, you can have it automatically saved to the Cloud Drive for free. This is super appealing, and could potentially have me shopping at Amazon for music more often than iTunes.

More than just a web interface, Cloud Player also works in conjunction with a free Android app, so you can stream your music from any Android device.

So how does the Cloud Player work? Find out, along with my first impressions after the break

If this is true, I am going to be a very happy music lover. According to reports, Apple is in talks with record labels to give consumers more access to songs they've purchased, potentially enabling them to download purchases on multiple devices — including the iPad.

This new functionality, which may be implemented midyear, would create a permanent backup of purchased music files for each iTunes user, allowing them to replace lost or damaged originals. Interestingly, record labels charge Apple for each music download, regardless of whether a user has paid for it, so Apple passes these charges to users.

This latest news aligns with previous reports that Apple was not planning to launch a streaming service in favor of cloud-based music storage. I'm very much a supporter of streaming music services (Rdio in particular), but if a backup of purchased digital songs existed, I would probably use iTunes far more often than I do. My only wish: could it be retroactive? I'm fairly certain there are some lost years of music floating around on an old computer from my college years.

Speculation surrounding an alleged streaming music service from Apple came after its purchase of Lala in 2009, but now music industry insiders are claiming that Apple has "clarified" its plans and that it does not have plans for a streaming music service. The rationale? It doesn't want to undermine its position as the top destination for music downloading.

Find out what Apple is planning instead after the break.

Spotify may be one of the most awesome music apps out there and has a huge potential to blow up here in the US, but we're still waiting on its arrival from the UK. Napster cofounder and Spotify investor Sean Parker took the stage during The Daily Beast's Innovators Summit in New Orleans earlier today and predicted that Spotify would hit US shores by the end of the year.

Of course, we've heard this "end of the year" prediction before, but that's no reason not to get excited for a potential holiday arrival. Spotify will give users access to millions of songs for free and allow you to send and share tracks and playlists among your friends. Imagine what will become of your holiday playlists this year! Oh, the possibilities.

Update: Video of Sean Parker talking about Spotify's future after the break.

We all shed a tear when music-streaming service Lala went down, and have been waiting to see what Apple would do with the recently purchased company ever since. Rumors have been swirling that Apple would skip over music and head straight for video streaming, but now, evidence is surfacing that Apple is in fact, allowing music streaming through a back door feature that utilizes MobileMe's iDisk.

iDisk allows you to store files in MobileMe's cloud, then access and share them from any computer, iPad, or iPhone; this includes music files. Within the release notes of the latest iDisk release, Apple says you can even "Play audio from your iDisk while using another app." Multitasking and streaming at the same time? Color me happy. But there is a restriction. Find out what it is after the break.

Apple may have shuttered cloud music service Lala last week, but a new music startup that stores your music in the cloud launched yesterday, and it's poised to become a great alternative to now-defunct Lala. Rdio is a subscription-based music service, charging $5 to $10 per month for an unlimited amount of music. Users who pay the full amount will be able to stream music from their computers or from their iPhone or BlackBerry devices; Android phones will be supported soon.

Besides listening to your own music, Rdio contains social aspects as well. Find out more after the break.

I love streaming music and the radio on my phone, but I hate it when the signal drops out and I lose my groove. If you're an Android phone user, you may not have to worry about that anymore. For a $10 monthly subscription fee, you can use the new Play.me app, which allows you to create custom playlists from more than two million songs and temporarily save them to your phone to use if you're heading to the subway, boarding a plane, or going anywhere that you may lose touch with the surrounding cell towers.

Additionally, Play.me gives you a huge library of Internet radio stations to choose from, and you can even download MP3s to keep. Plus, you can satisfy your social networking addiction by posting your custom playlists to Facebook and Twitter. Play.me also has a free trial version with limited streaming capabilities so you can try before you buy, and it's heading to the iPhone and BlackBerry later this year.

I love a good party, but for me, what truly makes a memorable bash is the selection of tunes blasting from the stereo. I know, most of us feel helpless when we go to a party or event and the music gets increasingly painful with every song. . . but there's hope! I've already told you about iTunes DJ, which allows you to select playlist songs from your iPhone, and now there's a site called Flavor Tunes, which makes it easy to collaborate with others on a party playlist! All you have to do is create a free online account and send out online invites to those who you want to help build your online streaming jukebox. Your friends can then help you create the most amazing playlist ever. From wedding songs to girls-night-out songs to Summer songs, there's already some on the site to choose from!

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