Yet more news on the impending Spotify US launch has surfaced today. This time we’re hearing that the popular music streaming service will be launching soon, possibly even this week, but it will be invite-only to allow the service to scale. Those with preview accounts will have invites to send out, and access will expand from there.
At long last, after months of rumor and innuendo, Spotify is finally coming to the US. The music streaming service has been a huge hit in Europe for the last few years, but US audiences have had to make do with services like Pandora and Rdio. Well, it looks like the licensing deals are in place, and you can sign up for an invite right now.
Much beloved music streaming company Pandora is taking quite a beating in just its second day of public trading. After making its IPO yesterday, the stock price started to inch downward, but today that inching became a free fall. The Stock price fell 24% today to a bit over $13 per share. Additionally, it is still slumping in after hours trading.
In what's starting to become eerily reminiscent of the Dot-com boom that took place in the 1990s, the popular tech companies to today are trending towards going public. LinkedIn started it by 
According to our favorite people, "sources close to the deal", Facebook has partnered with Spotify to bring its music streaming service to American shores. The service will be integrated with the Facebook website right in the news feed. The real kicker here, the service could launch in as little as two weeks.
Have you gotten your invite yet? No, not the one to the party, but to Google's Music Beta service. Don't hang your head and pout if you haven't received yours yet, it will probably arrive soon, assuming you requested one in the first place. Word on the web is that Google has begun sending out invites to us regular folk, opening up the beta service to non-Xoom owners.
Battered and beaten up in court, peer-to-peer file sharing service LimeWire has agreed to pay $105 million in damages to major record labels, the Recording Industry Association of America announced. The settlement ends a jury trial that began last week to determine the amount of damages LimeWire would owe, which could have ended up being 10 times the amount of the settlement, or more.
Word on the web is that Google later today is going to launch a music service, but not as originally intended. After being unable to hammer out agreements with record labels, Google is said to be following in Amazon's footsteps with a digital music locker service without any licensing deals in place. Music Beta by Google, as the search giant plans to call it, will let users upload their tracks to a storage locker in the cloud where they can be streamed and downloaded to any Internet connected devices.
Frankly, if someone had told us that MySpace was just going to be shuttered, we would not have been surprised. But it looks like the sale is going ahead and bids from no fewer than half a dozen potential suitors are expected this week. If that wasn't shocking enough, the value News Corp. insists on getting out of the faltering social site is something else. 
We are quickly nearing the one year anniversary of the first time Google demoed music downloads on Android, and Google Music is still a no show. We've been hearing that Google's discussions with the music labels have hit the skids, but El Goog might be working a new angle. According to Cnet, Google is in talks with Spotify to run its music service.
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