Crenk

Where do you head when you want to listen to music online without having to download anything or more the point pay for music. Either you head to a bittorrent site (which we will discuss later) or you head to a music streaming service.

Here is a list of the top music streaming services according to Compete. Today we are going to talk about a few of these services and what they can offer you.

Imeem - A streaming service that is based around a social network in the same way as Myspace. Although to me it seems that Myspace has every band in the world online, I still find it hard to believe that Imeem which is growing still gets those sort of numbers. Imeem is completely free to use and you just search for your favourite artist and then you are able to stream certain music direct from their profiles. The problem is that the music is controlled by the artist and normally your favourite tracks wont be online.

Seeqpod - This has to be my favourite streaming music service. Seeqpod is basically the Google of music search engines. Seeqpod searches through the world of mp3s and lets you stream them by using their service. Some tracks are sometimes damaged, but they seem to be improving this service over time. Simply type in the artist name or track title and let Seeqpod do the searching for you. Songza is also on the list of top streaming services, but they are using the Seeqpod technology, so please head over to the original site!

Deezer - Deezer is a french based music streaming site that is similar to Seeqpod except they are total legitimate and they pay royalties from streams. Deezer has just signed a deal with Universal publishing, so you will be able to find some of your favourite artists, but there are still a lot missing. Deezer is also trying to build a community around their streaming product, with music news and basic social networking options. Deezer is one service to keep your eye on in the future!

It has just been announced by Imeem that they are now supporting OpenSocial on the Imeem Media Platform (http://www.imeem.com/developers).

Here is what imeem is releasing today:

· Full support for the core OpenSocial JavaScript APIs, including access to people and relationships on imeem as well as access to data persistence APIs

· Added support for the OpenSocial gadget xml, making it easy for developers to specify their entire application in the OpenSocial gadget xml standard

· imeem-specific OpenSocial extensions, making it possible for developers to access imeem’s media metadata through the OpenSocial JavaScript APIs. This includes the ability to get back a specific user’s media, search for media in imeem’s vast media library, as well as get access to music, video, and photo content on imeem.

Developers will be able to port their existing OpenSocial applications and place them into the Imeem network. Currently Imeem has over 24 milion users and this is now sure to increase because of this integration. OpenSocial is now reaching over 300 million users every month and Google just keep signing new member every month.

There has been a lot in the last few days about the announcement by Last.fm about there new business model. Their business model has moved from 30 second clips of songs to full length streams. This however has a restriction of only 3 streams per song per artist. This is a major negative point with the new business model, because once you really get into a song I know I tend to play mine 10 times a day. All these announcements came on the back end of Last.fm signing content agreements will all four major labels.

Artists will be monetized by these streams through the advertising revenue made by the site. I know for a long time Imeem has been attempting to do exactly the same business model and they have had a great deal of success with this. Imeem now has all four major labels signed up and they are making a great deal of money off of the advertising model. Last.fm has also announced that their new revenue model is not exclusive to only the major labels, and anyone on Last.fm can now opt-in and stream their full music for very low royalties.

This all being said I would have really like to see Last.fm slightly change their model. I dont see why there is a limit on the amount of streams per song, unless they have an additional model that allows members to sign up at an additional fee to be able to play the song unlimited times.  It is also good to see that Last.fm has partnered with 7digital to offer the music downloads, however a long term solution for Last.fm must be to kill this partnership and enter the download market independently, this might even be a threat to iTunes!

I am still not convinved by Last.fm. The have a great piece of technology in the scrobbler, but I dont think their professionalism on that software has carried over to the site, monetization options and also profile and social network strategy.

Imeem, the service that offers a widget for sharing your music playlist, has reached a deal with Sony BMG to legally offer their music to users. In exchange for allowing Imeem users stream Sony BMG music in their widgets, the record label will get a cut of the advertising revenue. Imeem previously signed a similar deal with Warner Music, after the record company first tried to sue them.

Imeem has already signed with RouteNote. RouteNote has a private beta test launching next month, so make sure you signup.