Not really music news, but an interesting story nonetheless. Facebook is threatening to sue the Daily Mail after the tabloid wrongly claimed that one of its freelance writers, a middle aged man, had successfully posed as a 14 year old girl on the uber-social network and that, "within seconds" he was approached by older men who "wanted to perform a sex act" (or, possibly, a 14 year old girl writing for a rival paper successfully posing as an older man, who knows?).

The Mail's big mistake was that while said freelance writer - Mark Williams-Thomas - had indeed posed as a 14 year old girl on a social network and had indeed been approached by a dodgy older man, the social network he was using was not Facebook, and he claims that the paper were well aware of that fact but incorrectly edited his article to name the market-leading social networking site anyway.

Facebook quickly threatened a libel action, and The Mail subsequently removed the firm's name from the story online and published an apology. Well, I say they removed the firm's name from the report online, they did cut it from the article and headline, but Facebook say they are still name-checked in the story's page title and URL, both of which influence Google searches. The paper admitted that because of "technical issues" (ie, no one at the Mail knows how to work a website) that was indeed still the case, but that the paper was now getting those Facebook mentions removed too.

Nevertheless, Facebook says it is still consulting its lawyers over the reputation damage done by the original story, and the paper's slow removal of all elements of it. A UK spokesman told the Guardian that the company was assessing what "brand damage has been done".

Talking of companies on the skids, the new bosses at MySpace have given a briefing in the US about upcoming changes to their platform which further sees the one time social networking service move more into the entertainment content provision and sharing space. MySpace also recently lost their CEO somewhat suddenly, of course, with Owen Van Natta being pushed out last month. As previously reported, former Chief Product Officer Jason Hirschhorn and Chief Operating Officer Mike Jones are now running the shop.

According to Billboard, Jones admitted at the briefing at MySpace's Beverly Hills HQ that morale at the flagging web firm had been hit by the continued rise of rivals like Facebook, and the high number of executive departures in the last twelve months. He added that some employees had "lost the will to keep fighting", and that those people had been invited to depart the company because "we are at the point now where we need believers". Though one would assume that anyone at MySpace who has ever actually tried to use the site would find it pretty hard to be optimistic, it still being one of the shittest sites on the web and all.

Jones is hoping that some upcoming refinements to the MySpace platform will make it slightly less shit. I'm not convinced they will. But they should further move the web service into the entertainment arena. Changes include the facility to compile music playlists based on what songs your friends are listening to, another sign that management realise that really it's MySpace Music that could still potentially succeed, rather than the social networking element of what the company offers.

That said, MySpace Music is pretty shit too. With a crucial ad sales partnership with Google up for renewal later this month, those MySpace staffers feeling somewhat pessimistic are probably just being realistic. And unlike EMI, if and when Rupert Murdoch and his backers decide to cut their losses, there'll be little in the MySpace business anyone would want to acquire.

A rather influential sounding group of web companies, including all the pesky internet service providers, Google, eBay, Facebook and Yahoo!, put their name to a letter in the Financial Times yesterday slamming the previously reported amendment to the Digital Economy Bill giving the High Court more powers to shut down websites that primarily exist to infringe other people's copyrights.

As previously reported, the amendment replaced the controversial Clause 17 of the DEB, which would give future ministers the power to introduce new copyright rules on whim without going through the full parliamentary process. Although designed to placate those who opposed that Clause, the amendment put in its place is proving just as controversial.

The content lobby, and in particular the BPI, wanted the extra clause added to the Bill so that the copyright provisions in it didn't just focus on tackling file-sharing, and gave some extra powers to combat other forms of online infringement. In theory the amendment simply formalises existing legal powers to stop infringers, but those who oppose it fear it will be open to misuse.

The letter, which was also signed by that all round expert on everything Stephen Fry, says that the new provision is too contentious to be slipped into the new copyright proposals at the last minute without proper debate. The letter says: "This amendment not only significantly changes the injunctions procedure in the UK but will lead to an increase in internet service providers blocking websites accused of illegally hosting copyrighted material without cases even reaching a judge. The amendment seeks to address the legitimate concerns of rights-holders but would have unintended consequences that far outweigh any benefits it could bring".

It continues: "We are particularly concerned that a measure of this kind as a general-purpose policy could have an adverse impact on the reputation of the UK as a place to do online business and conflict with the broader objectives of Digital Britain".

Needless to say, the BPI do not concur. They issued a statement responding to the letter yesterday morning, saying: "The amendment adopted by the House Of Lords provides a clear and sensible mechanism to deal with illegal websites. Contrary to the claims in the letter, service providers would in every case be able to ensure that the decision as to whether a site should be blocked is made by the High Court. The court would be required to consider the extent of legal content on a website, any impact on human rights, and whether the website removes infringing content when requested. So the suggestion that the clause would lead to widespread disruption to the internet or threaten freedom of speech is pure scaremongering".

It continues: "The signatories to the letter recognise that dealing with illegal websites is a legitimate concern, and have argued in the past that action against illegal downloading should focus on commercial operators. Removing unfair competition from clearly illegal websites will encourage investment in legal online services and improve the legal internet experience for everyone".

In related news, the collecting society community has welcomed an amendment to Clause 42 of the Bill, which dealt with the role of collecting society type organisations in the digital era. Some feared the original wording of the clause - which would give a collecting society the right to represent songs without the explicit agreement of said songs' owners (they'd have to opt out) - could be open to abuse, so that web firms would set up their own collecting societies and license themselves everyone's music until copyright owners had cottoned on and opted out, or something similar.

The amendment says a collecting society can only come into being if it has the backing of the majority of the content owners it claims to represent, so only a community of copyright owners could initiate the launch of a new licensing body. All lovely.

OK, time for a quiz. Earlier this week record label trade body the BPI said that internet service providers should stop being just "dump pipes", and should take on the pirates who sale through said pipes, and then work with the record industry to develop music services that can be bundled into ISP packages, so that the net provider sector can have a share of the £103 million a year that the record label organisation reckons could be made by such services by 2013.

Here's the quiz bit. Do we think Carphone Warehouse owned ISP TalkTalk, the most vocal net sector critic of the record industry and an ardent opponent to three-strikes, responded to the BPI's report:

[a] By saying: "Fuck me, we hadn't thought of that, hey guys, let's cut off all the file-sharers, collaborate on some new TalkTalk music services, and all live happily ever after".

[b] By saying: "Well, most ISPs are already offering some digital music services, and while we take your point that there is more work to be done in this regard, we're not 100% convinced that the potential of this market in itself justifies such tough methods for combating file-sharing as proposed in the Digital Economy Bill, but hey, let's talk talk about this.

[c] By saying: "Thanks to the BPI for its strategic business advice, though some may question the value of such insight from an industry which has failed to acknowledge the impact of new technology on its own business models and is pressing the government to criminalise its biggest customers".

Answers on a postcard. A little clue: it's C.

Lobbying groups on both sides of the three-strikes debate published research yesterday, as chatter on the Digital Economy Bill reached its final stages in the House Of Lords and preparations to take the slightly controversial proposed legislation to the House Of Commons began.

The copyright section of this Bill, of course, will introduce the three-strikes procedure for targeting prolific file-sharers, like the really evil ones, who probably also bully teddy bears and pull the legs of spiders. The new laws would allow a government agency - probably OfCom - to suspend those file-sharers' internet access, seize any cuddly toys in their possession and put an exclusion zone between them and all arthropods.

The first bit of research came from one of the groups who support three-strikes, record label trade body the BPI. Their researchers Ovum reckon that if the six biggest internet service providers were to launch internet packages that had a licensed digital music service bundled in this year, the extra revenue they could generate on an annual basis by 2013 would be £103 million, assuming there was a "medium adoption scenario", which is my favourite sort of scenario.

I'm not quite sure how they figured that out, but obviously the point is that the ISPs, who oppose three-strikes, and who complain about having to contribute to the cost of running any new anti-piracy systems, have something to directly gain from the legit digital music market expanding which, the BPI would argue, is only possible if the provisions in the DEB become law.

Commenting on the report, BPI top man Geoff Taylor told CMU: "It's increasingly clear that it isn't smart [for an ISP to just] be a 'dumb pipe'. This report shows that the revenue potential of digital music services alone makes sound economic sense for ISPs. UK music companies want to innovate and develop exciting new digital offerings. ISPs such as Virgin Media have recognised that legal digital music services offer a more exciting and profitable future than continued widespread piracy".

Of course, the idea that ISPs help content owners police piracy in return for the two parties collaborating on new services, bundled into ISP packages, and on which the net firms can earn, has been around for several years now, and was the basis for voluntary talks between the two industries before three-strikes legislation was on the agenda. Virgin Media have been most proactive in pursuing this option, though their aim to launch an allyoucaneat MP3 service as part of their ISP package never got off the ground because all the majors except Universal Music weren't too keen on the proposition.

The ISPs would probably argue that they are more than willing to form content partnerships with the music industry, but that the financial terms previously offered aren't acceptable, especially when bundled in with piracy policing demands. And it has to be said, any digital music service set up by an ISP would probably be awful.

The other body publishing research this week is consumer rights group Consumer Focus, who generally oppose measures that could result in consumers having their net connections suspended.

Their study says that, while an increasing number of licensed digital music services are now available for those trying to move away from dodgy file-sharing, awareness of those services among the masses is pretty low. Even a much reported on service like Spotify has a relatively low profile among the masses, the consumer rights group says.

Consumer Focus says that more work must be done to promote legal services before any three-strikes style suspensions begin. Their boss Jill Johnstone told CMU: "The music industry is shooting itself in the foot by not promoting legal online music services. If file-sharing is causing the damage the music industry claims, why aren't they putting more effort in to promoting the legal alternatives? Before we go down the enforcement road it is only fair to ask the music industry to do more to make people aware of the legal options".

One of the issues, of course, is that since the original dot com boom most digital services have generally employed viral and word of mouth marketing to build user-bases rather than the sort of big budget ad campaigns which would reach mainstream consumers - therefore services which have a very high profile among early adopters are still a mystery to many.

The boss of one London-based legit music service, We7's Steve Purdham, agrees that this trend has had an impact on public awareness for licensed platforms, while adding that services like his prefer the sort of steady growth word of mouth delivers because it helps them keep better control of their user base, which can't grow too rapidly because of the costs of providing licensed music streams. He told CMU: "We7 has grown from zero to three million monthly UK users primarily by word of mouth. There is a significant reason [why we prefer that method] - the cost of providing the music can be significant. Ensuring growth keeps in pace with sales or funding is critical for a legal service".

Given the digital service providers often opt for 'below-the-line' marketing, does that mean the music industry should be funding a more high profile 'these are legit' campaign? Purdham, perhaps unsurprisingly, thinks so. He continued: "I think the biggest activity for the majors, government and music streaming services is to heavily promote the legal partners, such as We7, Last.fm and 7Digital, and drive that educational message home. We7 lets people have music for free with ads or a small monthly fee if they don't want ads. The best way to destroy piracy is to promote the legal services more aggressively".

Always keen to do its bit, CMU is currently putting together a list of all the licensed digital music services operating in the UK. It's very much a work in progress, but if you know about these things (or run a service) and can think of any legit services we are not currently listing, then drop us an email. You can see our work so far on this at www.legalmusicservices.co.uk.

Speculation remains as to whether the slightly controversial Digital Economy Bill will make it onto the statute book before parliament is dissolved for the General Election. The copyright section of this Bill, of course, introduces a three-strikes system for combating illegal file-sharing into UK law and, as of last week, formalises the powers of the High Court to shut down websites which are guilty of widespread copyright infringement.

The Bill has begun in the House Of Lords, and is expected to be passed by that chamber this week. Of course once passed by the Lords, it is always easier for the government to force legislation through the House Of Commons where they automatically have the majority vote. However, with the Tories opposing some aspects of the Bill (though not really the copyright section), opposition MPs might try to do everything they can to ensure the proposed legislation isn't approved before Election time.

That said, the Media Guardian reports that some senior media industry types have said they are still confident the Bill will get through parliament in time, with some speculating that the government may drop the bit most strongly opposed by the Tories - proposals for a new way of providing local news on ITV - in order to get approval for the rest of the Bill during the "wash up", the period of wheeling and dealing that goes on in parliament ahead of an uncertain election in which the government tries to get as much of its outstanding legislative proposals on the statute book before they are shown the door. 

The Guardian quote one media insider who says he is impressed with the speed in which the proposals - which cover a wide range of issues and topics - have got to the final stage in the Lords, adding: "The government deserves credit for pushing through a proposal that is not a vote-winner. They recognise that the creative industries are a huge asset for the country".

Much of the music industry, of course, supports the copyright section of the Bill, and some industry groups have been fiercely lobbying for three-strikes and website shutting injunctions for some time. That said, not the whole music industry is completely on board. Many in the artist, producer, songwriter and management communities still have big reservations about the introduction of what are perceived by many as overly draconian laws, especially as many are convinced said laws won't actually make much of a difference in the fight against piracy.

Napster Japan, a JV between the US version of Napster and Tower Records Japan, will close down at the end of May, bringing to an end the country's first subscription-based online music service.

I think it's closing because the new model being employed by Napster elsewhere in the world - so unlimited on-demand streaming coupled with five MP3 downloads a month - won't work in Japan, where labels are still rather nervous about anything involving the distribution of digital rights management free music files. Those crazy Japanese folks, hey.

Actually, it seems Napster Japan struggled to get a number of labels on board at all, which made it hard for them to build market share in a territory where a la carte mobile music services dominate.

MOG, the US-based music blog network which moved into on-demand music streaming last year, will launch a mobile version of its service at this month's SxSW, it has been revealed. As previously reported, MOG also plans to use a recent round of new investment to expand into the UK market.

Both MOG boss David Hyman and Spotify chief Daniel Ek will speak at the Austin music convention. The former has been publicly critical of the latter's free-to-use service, which Hyman says is untenable long-term and will never launch in the US as a result of nervousness in the major record companies, who are yet to licence a Spotify USA. 

The Warner Music Group has followed EMI and Universal into doing a licensing deal with video sharing website Dailymotion. So that's nice. As with Warner's more recent YouTube deal, the major will handle the sales for advertising that accompanies their videos in the US themselves, though in Europe and elsewhere they will work on such things in collaboration with Dailymotion's sales teams.

Dailymotion General Manager Joy Marcus told CMU: "We are delighted that our large and growing repertoire of quality music videos includes content from Warner Music Group, Universal Music Group, EMI and leading independent [aggregator] The Orchard. This breadth and depth of repertoire is a big win for our users who, quite simply, love music. Advertisers will also be pleased with new opportunities to reach a large audience of highly-engaged music fans".

Warner's VP Commercial Leanne Sharman added: "Dailymotion understands that offering official artist content is one of the most powerful ways to attract an interested, interactive audience. This partnership further strengthens our premium video strategy, which provides our roster of artists a flexible, wide-reaching distribution footprint through which to monetize and promote their music. At the same time, it builds our ability to present brands with a spectrum of possibilities for connecting with a diverse online population".

Apple's previously reported tablet computer the iPad will go on sale in the US on 3 Apr. A UK launch is expected later the same month, though non-US release dates and pricing are yet to be confirmed.

As previously rambled, it remains to be seen if the iPad can kick start the long established tablet computer market by offering an internet and entertainment-based device that benefits from a bigger screen than the iPhone and iPod touch. Though some reckon it will struggle to find an audience, given it is less portable than a mobile, and less capable than a laptop. But this is Apple, so never say never.

As also previously commented, so far the iPad offers more potential for newspaper and book publishers than the music industry, though some music-based app makers might find a use for the bigger screen somewhere along the line.

The Internet Service Providers Association yesterday called the latest amendment to the Digital Economy Bill a "fucking disgrace". Well, they actually said they were outraged and that "the many associated legal, technical and practical issues [of this provision] have simply not been debated in nearly enough depth; for a policy of such gravity, this is negligent".

As previously reported, the controversial Clause 17 that would give future ministers the power to introduce new anti-piracy systems without going through the full parliamentary process was dropped this week, to be replaced by a Lib Dems proposal that the High Court be able to issue injunctions to close down websites that primarily exist to infringe copyright. Such injunctions would basically force the ISPs to block access to offending websites. In theory, such injunctions can be applied for under existing UK copyright laws, though the new provision would formalise the process, and, the ISPA says, tip the balance of power too far in the content owner's favour.

The outraged net firms' trade body continued: "This amendment is misjudged and disproportionate and this Bill is a wholly inappropriate place to introduce this debate. ISPA is particularly disappointed that the Lords supporting this amendment drew parallels with the model of network-level blocking administered by the Internet Watch Foundation. The suggestion that a framework developed to fight against the distribution of criminal images of child sexual abuse is appropriate to tackle allegations of civil copyright infringement is incomprehensible".

Needless to say, record label trade body the BPI thought the new amendment was groovy, groovy, uber-cool. In fact, everyone who works there had a jam tart to celebrate. Their original support for Clause 17 (support which was controversial and, in part, motivated Pure Mint Recordings chief Anthony Hall to quit the body's Rights Committee) was based on the fear that while the DEB's three-strikes proposals potentially deal with the P2P file-sharing problem, they don't help with other forms of online piracy, which are arguably on the rise. The BPI feel that the strengthened injunctions proposition will overcome that issue, without the need for the rather vague Clause 17. 

Between bites of his jam tart, a BPI spokesman told Music Week: "We are pleased that parliament have recognised that legislation to tackle non-peer-to-peer piracy needs to be as robust as that planned to limit peer-to-peer. Rights holders will continue the dialogue with government and opposition to ensure that the final Bill allows new digital markets to flourish".

You know what all this makes me think about? That a jam tart would be nice with my post-Daily coffee. Mmmmmmmmmmmm.

Following all the chatter in recent weeks with regards whether or not the freemium version of Spotify is sustainable, the streaming music platform's top chief man Danny Ek has defended the relationship between his company's free and pay-to-use services.

As previously reported, some wonder if Spotify's free version is so good that not enough people will be persuaded to upgrade to the ten pounds of month premium version. And with ad revenues always a bit wobbly, many reckon a subscription-based business model will be better for both the digital and music sectors long term.

In the US, where Spotify is yet to launch, record label execs fear that the platform's uber-groovy free service - if it were to launch in the States - would not only prevent the Swedish company from signing up a sufficient number of premium customers, but it would also damage the various subscription-only streaming services which have been building a user-based in America, and maybe the all important a la carte download market led by iTunes. To that end, some reckon Spotify will have to launch in the US as a premium only offer (certainly Warner have said they won't license Spotify Freemium there), while some have gone as far as to suggest Spotify will eventually have to turn off free in Europe too.

But speaking at a Financial Times conference in London this week, Ek said that he was confident that his business model - and Spotify's current free/premium balance - would help the music industry boost revenues long term, rather than just let existing paying customers get what they are actually willing to pay for without paying.

According to the FT, he told the conference "What a lot of people in the music industry talk about is cannibalisation - getting the most profitable customers to become free users. That obviously doesn't work. But we are convinced and seeing a lot of research that actually we are doing the opposite: we are taking pirates and moving them into a legal service".

Ek added that he sees incorporating social networking and the sort of sharing P2P networks arguably offer as being part of Spotify's future, and possibly a way to encourage more people to upgrade to premium. He added: "Music is probably the most social object there is. If we can enable sharing of music on the internet, that application is going to be huge. That could be bigger than uploading your photos on the internet. Hundreds of millions of people want to share music with their friends ... It would be as big if not bigger than what Facebook or Twitter is. Our ambition is to be one of those players that drives that".

Talking of a streaming music service with social networking and sharing functionality, Grooveshark, the US-based streaming whatnot which began very much as a social sharing network, has said it is making its iPhone app available for use on so called jail-broken handsets, ie those Apple phones unlocked from the constraints of the IT firm's proprietary system.

This follows the news Apple have refused to approve the Grooveshark iPhone app for distribution via their official app store. Bosses at the streaming service say that Apple has "ritually rejected" the app for "primarily selfish reasons". Presumably those alleged "selfish reasons" are that the app enables paying Grooveshark subscribers to access the streaming service via their mobile, and to store music on the handset to continue listening when outside of mobile range, and that arguably competes with Apple's own iTunes services.

That said, the Grooveshark app works very much like the Apple-approved Spotify and We7 apps which offer a similar service for paying subscribers in Europe, so for Apple to now block the US firm's app in a bid to protect its own digital services would be odd. Whether Grooveshark's ongoing legal dispute with Universal Music had any bearing on Apple's decision isn't clear. Obviously, both Spotify and We7 have all four majors on board as content partners.

So, yesterday I was running my obviously excellent 'beginners guide to digital media' and was introducing Twitter to some never-before-tweeted types, and among the questions asked was: "How do they make any money". I pondered for a second and then responded: "Well, I guess they'll have to sort out some sort of proper advertising system at some point".

Little did I know, that 'point' was the exact moment I was speaking, to the second. Well, not quite, but the Wall Street Journal's tech blog has just reported on plans at Twitter HQ to incorporate advertising into the micro-blogging service's search facility, so that when you search the tweetosphere for tweets on, say, "New York", you'll see an ad for things to do in New York. When you search for tweets on "laptops" you'll see an ad for laptops. And when you search for "6music" you'll see an ad for clueless executives who specialise in making proposals that won't achieve any of their own aims.

Basically it will work like Google's basic search-linked ads system, though ad copy will have to be 140 characters long, so they take the form of a tweet. They should be much more obvious than the current text ads that appear on the web-based Twitter interface, and it's thought the social networking firm will sell the new ad spots much more proactively, the existing ones generally just promoting Twitter-related services. It's thought these new ads would also show when searches are done off the Twitter network via third party clients like Tweetdeck. People who primarily connect with Twitter using such apps currently completely avoid all Twitter advertising.

According to the WSJ the new ad system should go live this side of the summer.

As previously reported, rumours that the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement currently being negotiated by key nations around the world might sneak three-strikes into law through the back-door, by obligating signatories to introduce systems whereby internet service providers are forced to disconnect persistent file-sharers, now seem unfounded. Canadian copyright expert Michael Geist recently posted a leaked version of what seems like the relevant section of the draft treaty, and there is no mention of three-strikes.

However, if any of those countries who do advocate tougher systems for combating illegal file-sharing do hope to force such systems on others via the ACTA, they will have the recently refreshed European Commission to fight. A spokesman for the EC's newly appointed Commissioner For Trade, Karel De Gucht, told ZDNet last week: "We are not supporting and will not accept that an eventual ACTA agreement creates an obligation to disconnect people from the internet because of illegal downloads. The 'three-strike rule' or graduated response systems are not compulsory in Europe. Different EU countries have different approaches, and we want to keep this flexibility".

The EC is negotiating the ACTA on behalf of European Union members, including the UK.

US-based online music service MOG has secured another ten million in venture capital funding, and plans to use some of it to enter the UK market in early Summer.

As previously reported, MOG was originally a music-based social networking and blogging service with parallels to Last.fm, but last Autumn it announced plans to launch a subscription-based streaming music service with similarities to American services like Rhapsody and Pandora, and elements of European streaming supreme Spotify. That service launched in the US in December with all four majors plus Beggars and aggregators IODA and The Orchard onboard as content partners.

With only a subscription option, MOG will enter an increasingly crowded market place in the UK, and with little existing brand recognition.

Although MOG will undercut the Spotify subscription service in terms of monthly fee, with no ad-funded freebie option MOG will be more competing the likes of Sky Songs and the revamped Napster, who currently offer combined unlimited-streaming and limited-download packages for £6.50 and £5.00 a month respectively. MOG will probably argue that they offer more social networking and Last.fm-style tracking functionality than Sky, Napster and Spotify, though it remains to be seen how attractive a USP that is to streamers, especially given how well Spotify and Last.fm work in unison.

MOG boss David Hyman has previously been quite dismissive of its biggest European rival Spotify, predicting that it won't launch a free service in the US, and that the free model is untenable even in Europe in the long term. He recently told PaidContent: "We'd like to do free, but the model doesn't work - Imeem went out of business - these services are haemorrhaging money. The labels won't let them continue to do free. Contrary to what you read, I don't think you'll be seeing [free Spotify] in the States at all. Free's cool, [but] free's like crack".

A new music recommendation service called mflow has announced a number of media partnerships ahead of its April launch.

mflow is a bit like a music-specific version of Twitter, users can recommend favourite tracks to their followers, who can then stream the recommended track in full once and, if they like it, buy the track, all via the one mflow widget. The recommender then gets 20% of the download fee as a credit to spend on other music recommended to them by the people s/he follows. The service has been in beta for a while, and will properly launch next month.

The media partnerships are with Bauer titles Q, Kerrang! and Mojo plus the NME and Clash, and will see the digital firm profiled across those partners' media. Each media will also start recommending top tunes via mflow. 

mflow marketing man Atan Burrows told CMU: "Reaching users through major music titles is a key part of our marketing strategy pre-launch. The titles we are partnering with are all trusted sources and play a vital role in the recommendation of new music. [And] all the titles we will be working with will also have their own profiles on mflow, which will allow them to recommend and share new music with their readers".

Music videos account for nearly a third of all traffic on YouTube, apparently. Or at least that's what research company Sysomos says. Entertainment videos are the second most watched, even though I've no idea what an "entertainment video" is. Are music videos not entertaining? Perhaps that means all the videos of people falling over and pulling funny faces.

Music videos are the most viewed content type for all YouTube users, though the percentage that music content accounts for declines as users get older, if that makes sense.

Spotify has announced the first ever music video to appear on the music streaming service. Not only that, but it's an exclusive, too. And it's for a song by Jimi Hendrix. Oh, and it's directed by Julien Temple. So that's four good things already. Everyone at Spotify, you are hereby allowed to go and have a sit down in the comfiest chair available for the next 20 minutes.

The video for 'Bleeding Heart', a song which appears on new Hendrix rarities compilation 'Valleys Of Neptune', depicts Jimi performing at Glastonbury. Temple used some kind of black magic to create the video, as Hendrix never actually performed at that particular festival. How is it done? No one knows.

As well as the video, which is available now to all users, Spotify Premium subscribers will be able to listen to 'Valleys Of Neptune' from 4 Mar, ahead of its release on 8 Mar.