Polar Mobile—the Canadian startup that develops apps for big-name publishers like CBS Interactive (NYSE: CBS), Conde Nast, Sports Illustrated (NYSE: TWX), Shanghai Daily, Future Publishing (LSE: FUTR) and the WSJ—today announced two steps up in its growth: it has picked up an additional $6 million in funding and has launched…

Spotify CEO Daniel Ek took the stage at Spotify’s first-ever press conference to expand the music streaming service’s Facebook integration to a wider world of social networks and devices, arguing that sharing is the only thing that can save the music industry and stop piracy.

According to figures from IE Market Research, there are currently 832 million paid users of digital music worldwide, with that number expected to rise to 1.6 billion by 2014. Today, announcements from streamed entertainment provider Aspiro and the music download service 7digital point—respectively announcing a new white-label distribution deal and…

We’ve gathered together a selection of some of the stories and tributes been written for Steve Jobs in the last several weeks—with a particular emphasis on the those made since news of his passing broke on October 5. “Our time’s Da Vinci,” in the words of Spotify’s Daniel Ek. Read…

Years after CBS Interactive (NYSE: CBS) acquired Last.fm, the personalized streaming music service will be added to Radio.com, the broadcaster’s online player. Radio.com, which already hosts AOL’s and Yahoo’s streaming music as part of its 130 stations and was relaunched a year ago, hopes that Last.fm will complement its existing…

Our look at some of the big stories today in mobile. Today, RIM (NSDQ: RIMM) preloads 7digital on the PlayBook; Nokia’s still happy with Symbian; Foursquare gets an update; and a new iPad “social magazine” launches to compete with Flipboard: Zite.

In another sign the economics for purely-free music streamers don’t add up, Last.fm says it will now require a monthly subscription for access to its music via mobile and home entertainment devices.

After more than a year sucking Last.fm’s energies over to America, is CBS (NYSE: CBS) finally letting the music site have a bit of London fun again? CBS Interactive Music Group is appointing Sony (NYSE: SNE) Music exec Matthew Hawn as Last.fm’s vice president of product, based at its office…

—BBC Introducing: The Beeb says 20,000 unsigned music artists have used its Uploader, a tool designed to share new music with BBC Radio stations via the BBC Introducing project. Release. —Jobsite: DMGT’s recruitment searcher has got itself Freesat carriage. Its service is accessible via DMGT stablemate Teletext’s Channel 986 for…

Last.fm is retiring a feature whereby users could play any full song they like, and is instead outsourcing the feature to a range of third-party, cloud-based music services. Before today, users could play tracks from artists on the corresponding track page (though WBR had still not renewed with the site).…

After its 2007 acquisition, it doesn’t seem like CBS (NYSE: CBS) has been able to get the most from its $280 million Last.fm outlay. There’s been no TV scrobbling, no profit, the site’s key execs have left and fitting the trendy Silicon Roundabout, London, startup in to a U.S. megacorp…

By Chris Tryhorn: UK broadcaster Five has signed a deal with CBS (NYSE: CBS) to make programmes available on the US network’s on-demand video website TV.com. The partnership is a coup for CBS, allowing it to steal a march on its US rivals ABC (NYSE: DIS), Fox and NBC, whose…

CBS’ games site GameSpot is bringing its industry intelligence-gathering service to the UK. GameSpot Trax includes data from 4.5 million UK gamers. The service is packaged as a tool for retailers, games publishers and marketers to measure consumer interest and buzz around particular titles.

*CBS* should be pleased with its choice to allow *Microsoft* to sync Xbox LIVE to Last.fm, as the partnership has already netted the streaming music service nearly a million new subscribers. Last.fm went live on Xbox last Tuesday, and both companies are already hyping the deal as a success in…

Four months after announcing the features, Microsoft (NSDQ: MSFT) added social networking and music radio functionality to its Xbox 360 console on Tuesday, along with the first European foray for its Zune brand (see earlier reports from Tameka and I). Here are my initial explorations with each new service (turn…

Several key Last.fmers who have been with the social music site since its early days will follow their founders out the door in the next few weeks, as CBS (NYSE: CBS) continues to struggle with the integration of its $280 million acquisition. —Head of music Jonas Woost (pictured), who has…

While most radio stations are looking for ways to expand their online presence, *CBS Interactive* Music Group is doing the opposite with social music site Last.fm. by giving the brand an all new station to be broadcast on the company’s HD multicast stations. Last.fm will effectively take over CBS (NYSE:…

—Last.fm video ads: Remember the new visual music player it unveiled in May? Now it’s picked a company to sell ads in to it. Germany’s Smartclip, which already sells adds in to Zattoo’s TV app window, gets the task of selling clickable video and animated displays in to the Flash…

Warner Music Group (NYSE: WMG) is still proving to be the big online hold-out amongst the four music majors. Seven months after it pulled its videos and songs from YouTube, and 13 months after ending its license with Last.fm, fans still can’t play any of WMG’s Madonna, Red Hot Chili…