Distorted-Loop.com

MySpace will launch the long-expected MySpace Music store in September, company CEO Chris DeWolfe confirmed at a Fortune-sponsored technology conference in the US.

The music service is a joint venture with all the major labels, bar EMI. It will be a combined music store and subscription service, offering unlimited streaming play of tracks for free (hello, Last.fm). Users will be able to create playlists, and add widget music players to their MySpace profiles. They will also be able to purchase song downloads,  ringtones, T-shirts and concert tickets. The venture will be backed by advertising.

MySpace claims to host webpages for five million artists. The company also says 65 per cent of its users embed music on their pages. One more metric - an incredible five billion songs are streamed on MySpace every month, the company claims.

Leading MySpace competitor, Facebook, this week announced a new scheme to reward what the company sees as the best developers on its service.

Music application iLike - the main resource for music on Facebook and the company’s answer to MySpace and its integrated music features - is one of the first applications to be selected for the scheme. That scheme will offer iLike more visibiilty on Facebook and better feedback.

“We opened Facebook Platform with a belief that community innovation can give people the tools, and the power, to share and communicate in ways that Facebook can’t build on its own. We’re humbled by what our developer community has accomplished,” said Mark Zuckerberg, founder and CEO of Facebook. “We’re confident that the changes we’re presenting today help developers build more meaningful social applications that enable users to share more information.”

In a related move, Facebook has bought in Digg as part of the soon to appear Facebook Connect feature. Facebook Connect allows users to bring their Facebook account information, friends and privacy to any third party website, desktop application or device.

“Digg surfaces the best content on the Web as voted on by its community of 26 million,” said Kevin Rose, founder of Digg. “Facebook Connect will help us promote more conversations on Digg by giving Facebook’s 90 million users an opportunity to sign-in to Digg with their Facebook accounts and become part of the active Digg community. This allows both Facebook and Digg users to more easily share the content they care about with the people they care about.”

Additional planned participants at launch include: Amiando, CBS.com, CNET, CollegeHumor, Disney-ABC Television Group, Evite, Flock, Hulu, Kongregate, Loopt, Plaxo, Radar, Red Bull, Seesmic, Socialthing!, StumbleUpon, The Insider, Twitter, Uber, Vimeo and Xobni.

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