Los Angeles - We are very fortunate to have over 300 of the most influential decision-makers in the music industry gathered in Los Angeles this week for our 2-day deal-makers forum Digital Music Forum West to network, do deals, and share ideas about the business. It kicked off yesterday with, among other things, a discussion on the intersection of Urban Music, technology and digital lifestyles with Garth Trinidad, Award-Winning DJ & Host for KCRW (pictured).

Silicon Valley - Marc Andreessen and long-time business partner Ben Horowitz have raised $300 million in fresh capital to form a new venture capital company called “Andreessen Horowitz.” The focus of all investments will be “new” business model areas, including consumer internet, cloud computing and consumer electronics. The company will also invest in some B2B-plays, such as virtualization and cloud storage.

Australia - How is this for an innovative social media marketing idea? An Australian marketing company called  uSocial is offering a paid service that finds followers for users of the micro-blogging service Twitter. Is it cheating? You decide.

Palo Alto - Bling Nation, a mobile payments infrastructure service, has raised $8 million in funding from Lightspeed Venture Partners, Meck and Camp Ventures. The money will be used to work with banks in local U.S. communities to set up the infrastructure required for its Redi Pay Bling mobile payments service.