iLike

I followed Apple's music event keynote live on my MacBook and as CEO Steve Jobs demonstrated the upcoming Ping social-networking service for iTunes 10, I had a strange sense of deja vu. Ping lets iTunes users connect to friends, share their now-playing lists publicly, and make recommendations. It's built into the iTunes desktop client software and accessible from mobile devices as well.

Where have I heard this before? Let's see, iLike was kind of a social network. The Rdio subscription service has a social-networking element. But I'm thinking earlier than that. MySpace? No, that was more … Read more

Microsoft on Tuesday introduced the latest update to its plucky come-from-behind search engine, Bing, offering specialized results for music, TV, movies, and games. (CNET's Ina Fried has the full details.)

On the music front, Bing now offers playable search results: users can play a full-length version of each song once, and 30-second samples after that. The feature is similar to what Google introduced in October, provided by partner iLike. (Google also had a partnership with Lala, but Apple acquired that company in December and discontinued its online music-streaming service in May.)

If you like the song, you can then … Read more

Here's an interesting study in contrasts. When MySpace acquired iLike back in August, MySpace left the site mostly intact. The iLike home page is still there, you can still add iLike's music-finding and sharing application to your Facebook page, and iLike is given prominent placement in Google search results for music-related queries, thanks to an October deal between MySpace and Google. (That deal also included several other companies.)

On Tuesday, MySpace completed its acquisition of Imeem, a service that used to let users upload music and videos and share playlists. In the press release announcing the finalization of … Read more

Two prominent technology writers are reporting vastly different stories about what Apple paid for music service Lala.

Peter Kafka, from The Wall Street Journal-owned blog All Things Digital, cited anonymous sources in a Monday report who said Apple plunked down $80 million for Lala. In a story published Tuesday, Michael Arrington at TechCrunch cited his own sources who disputed that price and said Lala was acquired for $17 million.

I wish I knew who was right, but my reporting came up with nothing solid. I will say that from the second I heard Kafka's number I was skeptical. After … Read more

Update 6:21 p.m. PST: The New York Times and Wall Street Journal are reporting that Apple and Lala have struck a deal.

Apple acquired Lala on Friday, unlikely offering much for the streaming-music service.

Sources with knowledge of the discussion told me Apple is interested in bringing some of Lala's engineers onboard. According to the sources, Apple is impressed by Lala's technology. The 4-year-old Lala scans users' hard drives and creates a duplicate music library that they can access from Web-enabled devices. The company also sells songs for a dime each.

I posted a story on … Read more

How far we've come in such a short time. When I began this blog in 2007, finding a particular song online was an exercise in frustration. You could subscribe to an all-you-can-eat service like Rhapsody, but cheapskates and occasional music listeners either had to dig deep, engage with a questionably legal file-trading service, or settle for 30-second previews from iTunes or one of its Web-based competitors.

Since then, as readers of this blog know, dozens of sites offering free streaming music have emerged, from the dead-simple like Songerize and its successor Songite (enter a song title to play it … Read more

LOS ANGELES--Already the far-and-away leader in search, Google wants to be a big player in music discovery, too.

The search giant teamed up with News Corp.'s MySpace and streaming service Lala for the Wednesday debut of the new Google music search feature at the historic Capitol Records building in Hollywood. With the new music search, which had been internally code-named "OneBox" when news of the project broke earlier this month, search queries pertaining to something like a song, artist, lyrics, or album will bring up links to streaming songs from iLike and MySpace, as well as links … Read more

Microsoft's MSN is in preliminary talks with MySpace about using the social-networking site's music service, MySpace Music, to help power music offerings on the giant portal.

While sources at both companies cautioned that the talks are still early, Microsoft, which has its own music site that it programs with original and partnered content, execs are interested in goosing it.

That's because MSN Music consistently ranks substantially lower than other big online music properties in terms of traffic, while MySpace Music is always near the top.

Sources said Microsoft execs don't think they can do as good … Read more

I don't have it confirmed yet, but it appears iLike is preparing to integrate its new music download store into its popular Facebook application sometime soon.

According to one music industry source, Facebook users may be able to start buying downloads from iLike's Facebook app as soon as this week. Seattle-based iLike and its new parent company MySpace aren't wasting anytime testing Facebook.

On Wednesday, MySpace announced that it had aquired iLike for an undisclosed amount of money. The news that the two sides were close to the deal had leaked days ago, so it wasn't … Read more