SPOTIFY REQUIRES NEW USERS TO USE FACEBOOK TO SIGN IN TO SERVICE

Spotify has been taking a great deal of flak today about a change made to the service that forces newly registered users to log in using their Facebook IDs. The streaming music service has just released a new statement giving its official response to complaints about the new system, updating a statement released earlier today.

To us, this is all about creating an amazing new world of music discovery. As most of our users are already social and have already connected to Facebook, it seemed logical to integrate Spotify and Facebook logins. We already use Facebook as part of our backend to power our social features and by adopting Facebook’s login, we’ve created a simple and seamless social experience.

From today, all new Spotify users will need to have a Facebook account to join Spotify. Think of it as like a virtual ‘passport’, designed to make the experience smoother and easier, with one less username and password to remember. You don’t need to connect to Facebook and if you do decide to, you can always control what you share and don’t share by changing your Spotify settings at any time.

We’re constantly trying new things, always looking for feedback and we’re always going to listen to our users, making changes based on this feedback wherever we can.”

That seems to hint at potential changes to the new policy if the complaints persist.

FACEBOOK UNVEILS TIMELINE, COZIES UP TO NETFLIX AND SPOTIFY

During the F8 conference on Thursday, Facebook’s CEO Mark Zuckerberg took the stage to introduce a host of new features that are rolling out to the social network. The major change is called “Timeline” and it takes advantage of existing pictures and status updates to create a more visual experience of “who you are.” As you scroll down your personal timeline, you’ll be able to view pictures and updates throughout the years. There is a new option in the upper right-hand side of your profile to quickly skip to a year in time too, and many of the features are also available on Facebook’s mobile applications.

Timeline automatically hides information that Facebook doesn’t think is important, but if it is, you can easily switch it to show that content. In addition, users can click the Timeline and add photos to earlier points in time before Facebook existed, such as their childhoods. Apps can also populate the timeline.

Zuckerberg also stated that users can now listen to music, read news, and watch TV and movies right through Facebook. For some of the content, you can simply hover over your friends’ post that shows up in your news Ticker and instantly have access to that content. For example, if you see that a friend of yours is listening to REM via Spotify, you can simply click on their post and be instantly connected to the song they’re listening to and listen along with them. Then, you can open up your chat and talk with your friend about how sad you are that REM finally broke up.

SPOTIFY NOW AVAILABLE IN THE US

Spotify, the trendy music on demand service that has garnered tremendous media attention in Europe, has finally launched in the U.S. as rumored last week. Spotify announced earlier this month that it would become available in the U.S. “soon,” though open negotiations with Warner Music Group were reportedly preventing the company from setting a firm launch date. Apparently Warner finally came around. The Spotify service lets users stream unlimited music on demand, and also build and share playlists.

For the time being, the free ad-supported version of Spotify that allows streaming to Windows and OS X PCs only is available as an invite-only service in the U.S. Those who don’t want to wait, however, can pay: a premium $9.99 per month subscription will let users stream ad-free music to mobile devices, share playlists and cache music for offline playback. A $4.99 intermediate plan will remove ads from the stream, but it doesn’t support streaming to the company’s mobile apps, which are already available for iOS devices in the App Store and for Android devices in the Android Market.

SPOTIFY FINALLY COMING TO US

The music streaming service that has won over the collective heart of Europe is finally making the puddle jump that we've been waiting for. Spotify just threw up a US landing spot, inviting eager Americans to jump in line for a table at the party. Meanwhile, we just received confirmation on our own end that things are finalizing for testing here in the States, and we'll be sure to report back just as soon as our credentials clear. We should note, however, that there's still no definitive time table to report, but it's fairly obvious that those final record deals are close enough to done to call this thing a victory.

SPOTIFY SIGNS UMG, ONLY NEEDS WARNER FOR US LAUNCH

All Things D reports that Spotify has signed Universal Music Group to a US distribution deal, the third of the four largest labels to agree, and anonymous sources say the last remaining holdout, Warner Music, may also soon cave.

LEAK: FACEBOOK AND SPOTIFY TEAM UP FOR MUSIC SERVICE

Facebook has partnered with Spotify on a music-streaming service that could be launched in as little as two weeks, sources close to the deal have told Forbes.

The integrated service is currently going through testing, but when launched, Facebook users will see a Spotify icon appear on the left side of their newsfeed, along with the usual icons for photos and events.

Clicking on the Spotify icon will install the service on their desktop in the background, and also allow users play from Spotify’s library of millions of songs through Facebook. The service will include a function that lets Facebook users listen to music simultaneously with their friends over the social network, one of the sources said.

The partnership is another indication of how Facebook is moving towards becoming a hub for media like movies and music. Last March for instance, Warner Bros. announced it would make movies available to stream and rent through Facebook using Facebook credits.

It has yet to be decided if the new service will be called “Facebook Music” or “Spotify on Facebook,” but it will only be available for Facebook users in countries where Spotify has a presence, excluding the all-important United States.

MICROSOFT TO UNVEIL NEXT MAJOR RELEASE OF WINDOWS PHONE MAY 24TH

Microsoft has scheduled a Windows Phone event in New York City on May 24th, 2011, during which the company will “lift the curtain on the next major release of Windows Phone.” We know Mango will offer Internet Explorer 9 with an integrated Twitter experience, better multitasking, and new apps such as Angry Birds, Skype, and Spotify. We’ve also heard that Microsoft will add Bing Audio for identifying music, Bing Vision for scanning bar codes, and voice-guided turn-by-turn navigation with Bing Maps, although none of these features have been confirmed by Microsoft just yet.

SPOTIFY LAUNCHES iTUNES COMPETITOR

Companies like Apple and Google are doing their best to put together music products that compete directly with Spotify’s Web-based music streaming product. While reports suggest record labels are making the process as difficult as possible for these giants, Spotify just took the fight to their home turf. The company on Wednesday launched a new music download service that attempts to make Spotify “the only music player you’ll ever need.”

Spotify users can now purchase and download full playlists comprised of any songs from the company’s 9 million-track catalog for as low as £0.50 per song. And as an extra little slap, Spotify’s new feature allows playlists to be synchronized with the iPod classic, iPod nano or iPod shuffle right from within the Spotify desktop app.

Spotify still isn’t available in the U.S., but rumors suggest the company is closer than ever to striking deals with record companies that will allow it to launch its popular service stateside.

RUMOR: SPOTIFY GETS CLOSER TO LAUNCHING MOVIE SERVICE

Spotify continues to negotiate with Facebook over its long promised U.S. launch. But that isn’t the only thing the music streaming service has been up to. They’ve negotiated a number of deals with major movie studios to offer users streaming movies as well as music, a source in the industry tells us.

Earlier this week we reported that YouTube plans a similar service (something we first wrote about last year). As with Google/YouTube, we’re not sure when Spotify will launch the new service. But our best information suggests this Fall.

And these aren’t your standard Netflix/Amazon/iTunes type movie deals, either, we’ve heard. Spotify is aiming to offer users much earlier access to movies. Similar to the release dates that hotel’s get for premium in-room movies. They’re expensive, but users can often see them just a couple of weeks after they’ve been in theaters.

We believe the studio deals being negotiated are for worldwide rights, so Spotify users anywhere would have access.

Spotify's CEO, Daniel Ek, is denying the rumor, however he has denied a number of past rumors that turned out to be true.

SONY HINTS AT PULLING LIBRARY FROM iTUNES

In an interview with AdAge, Sony executive Michael Ephraim says that music publishers are starting to look for alternatives to iTunes, including Sony’s own Music Unlimited, which will soon be launched.

“Publishers are being held to ransom by Apple and they are looking for other delivery systems, and we are waiting to see what the next three to five years will hold,” Ephraim is quoted as saying.

Of course, what Ephraim is really saying here is that he’d like Sony’s own version of iTunes, Music Unlimited, to become big enough that they don’t have to pay Apple a cut, or can renegotiate their terms with Apple in a way that is more favorable to Sony.

Bluntly, though, it seems unlikely that Music Unlimited will dethrone iTunes. Apple has all of the momentum and all of the iPods. If Ephraim really wants Sony to pull away from iTunes, they need to look towards alternatives doing something iTunes isn’t doing yet. European streaming music service Spotify is one possible contender… and what do you know? Sony just inked a deal with Spotify. Maybe Apple does have something to fear here after all.

SPOTIFY SIGNS FIRST US DEAL WITH SONY

MediaMemo is reporting Spotify, a music streaming service popular in Europe, has signed its first music deal in the US with Sony. The terms of the deal are said to be very similar to Spotify’s European deals, which would give U.S. users access to ad-supported streaming to a computer for free or ad-free streaming to a variety of devices for a monthly fee. The deal does not mean that a U.S. launch of the Spotify service is imminent, however. The company still needs to get additional labels on board, and it has had a great deal of trouble wooing U.S. labels thus far. Theories as to why labels are so reluctant include fear of further cannibalization of CD sales and fear of upsetting Apple, the top music retailer in the country.

RUMOR: APPLE AND SPOTIFY IN ACQUISITION TALKS

A tip from an anonymous source over at TechCrunch says that Apple is talks to acquire music service Spotify.  Spotify is an online music service and has created a lightweight software application that allows instant listening to specific tracks or albums, with virtually no buffering delay. users will simply download and then log onto their service enabling on demand streaming of music.  Currently Spotify is only available in Europe where they are quite profitable due to excellent licensing terms from the European music labels.

It was also rumored that Google tried to acquire Spotify around the same time Apple acquired LaLa, for almost $1 billion, but the deal fell apart because Google wanted to grandfather in the music rights.  This means Google wanted the terms of the licensing agreements Spotify has with European music labels to continue.  Unfortunately, in most of the agreements there is a clause that if the company gets bought or acquired the agreements must be renegotiated, making most music services unbuyable. [TechCrunch]