ilike

Music service iLike is dependent on Facebook for 80 percent of its traffic and revenue, and that fact has suppressed iLike's value, say sources close to the music service.

MySpace has offered about $20 million to acquire iLike, a music recommendation site and provider of Facebook's most popular music application, sources with ties to iLike said. They added that the deal could close at any time. TechCrunch first reported the acquisition talks.

Some in Silicon Valley have speculated that MySpace isn't willing to pay more for iLike because it fears Facebook will boot iLike once its main … Read more

News Corp.-owned MySpace is "close to acquiring" social music service iLike, according to TechCrunch.

The price tag is rumored to be in the neighborhood of $20 million. Representatives from iLike were not immediately available for comment.

The report comes within days of iLike launching a music download store--a development first reported by CNET News--with MP3s available from all four major record labels.

The deal, if confirmed as accurate, highlights the often complicated connections in digital media's elite ranks.

iLike, for example, rose to fame through its close ties to Facebook. The iLike application, since re-branded to simply Music, … Read more

Social-networking service iLike opened a music download store on Friday, and has begun selling MP3s from all the major music labels.

On Wednesday, CNET News reported that iLike would soon open a store and offer song downloads from at least three of the major labels. The site actually is selling music from all four big record companies: Universal Music Group, Sony Music Entertainment, Warner Music Group, and EMI.

The prices are comparable with those found at iTunes and Amazon. Songs range in price from 89 cents to $1.29.

Companies competing in the ad-supported music space have struggled to generate … Read more

Facebook most's popular music application comes from iLike, and soon the company will try to turn that social-networking cachet into song sales.

Seattle-based iLike, a social music service, is expected to launch a music download store in coming days, perhaps as soon as Thursday, according to two sources with knowledge of the deal. Last month, CNET News reported that iLike was in talks with the top four recording companies about securing licenses for downloads.

The new store will debut as a beta version and will feature songs from at least three of the four top major recording companies, according … Read more

Three years ago this month, the Financial Times and The New York Times chronicled the emergence of an untried but promising new digital-music service: SpiralFrog.

The start-up would offer music free of charge to consumers and attempt to hand the bill to advertisers. Since then, we've seen a dozen companies make names for themselves by offering their own twist on the ad-supported music model, including MySpace Music, Imeem, and Pandora. But regardless of how anyone has tweaked it, not a single service in the still-nascent sector has proven that it knows how to offer consumers a compelling free-music service … Read more

In its typical stately and slightly behind fashion, The New Yorker magazine this week published a piece (subscription required) about big changes in the live music industry. The article used as its grounding point a recent dispute between Bruce Springsteen and Ticketmaster over scalping and ticket withholding by artists, but the larger point was that the concert industry may be following the recording industry down the tubes--a prediction I made more than a year ago. The article has reams of supporting statistics and quotes, but the simple point is that the big acts aren't selling as many tickets as … Read more

Music service iLike, best known for third-party applications on platforms like Facebook, made its big iPhone app launch today. The company has rolled out an app for alerts about local concerts, and also launched its previously announced program for bands and artists to create custom fan applications.

Apple still has to approve the "Local Concerts" app, according to a release, but iLike is excited about its potential impact regardless.

"It's something that we really felt was a good idea on paper as we started developing it," iLike CEO Ali Partovi told CNET News, "but … Read more

Update: 6:06 p.m.: To include iLike's hopes to open a download store in the next 30 days.

Facebook's most popular music service, iLike, is in talks with the four major music labels about opening a download store, multiple sources within the music industry said Tuesday.

According to the sources, iLike is close to reaching final agreements with at least three of the top record companies. The sources did not disclose which labels are close but added that iLike is hoping to open its download store within the next month.

A spokeswoman for Seattle-based iLike said: "… Read more

We all like to share songs with friends, and we all have songs that share meaning with loved ones. Perhaps that's why there are so many music social networks out there. These sites combine both, and make music exploration and enjoyment something that you're not doing on your own.

From the well-known to the obscure, I've been exploring a variety of music social networks that you'll definitely want to check out:

Buzznet is a great way to connect with other music lovers. You can write status updates and view an activity feed that shows what your friends are listening to. You can also tell all your friends what your "song of the moment" is and post it to a profile that can be completely redesigned and themed using built-in tools.

Buzznet has some songs from major artists, but I would have liked to see more tracks. That said, the site makes up for it with music videos from YouTube. That adds a bit more value, as long as the recording quality is good..

Flotones isn't the best looking site in this roundup, but it does a nice job of connecting indie artists with fans. You can choose to sign up as either a fan or an artist. If you're an artist, you can upload music, post to a blog, give out your contact information to schedule gigs, and more. As a fan, you can find artists, follow their updates, and review their music. You can also send them private messages. Not all musicians put their music on the site, but quite a few do.… Read more