Berkeley, Calif. - MOG, the provider of a music blogging platform that counts thousands of sites, on Tuesday announced the launch of a new advertising network for independent music blogs and websites. The company said the network already counts more than 30 affiliates. Separately, the company said that legendary record producer and Def Jam co-founder Rick Rubin, now an executive at Columbia Records, has joined its board of directors. "This is a great validation of what we're building," said MOG founder and CEO David Hyman. "We're excited to have his expertise help shape the company."

San Antonio, Texas - Radio giant Clear Channel announced on Monday that it partnered with Katz Media Group to launch what they say is the largest digital radio network, which incorporates independent Internet radio stations with online and mobile streams of AM and FM stations, and counts an audience of nearly 5 million weekly listeners. Along with station streams from major broadcasters Clear Channel, Cumulus, Cox and Emmis, the Katz Online Network will feature Internet streams from providers including Accuradio, Radioio, Digitally Imported and SmoothJazz.com. Ads on the network will be sold by Katz 360 Sales, Clear Channel Online Music & Radio and Premiere Radio Networks.

San Francisco - TrueAnthem, an online music label that distributes ad-supported music widgets, announced that it has raised $2 million in angel funding from unnamed investors.

San Antonio, Texas - Radio giant Clear Channel (NYSE: CCU) announced on Friday that its shareholders have approved its $17.9 billion sale to private equity firms Bain Capital Partners and Thomas H. Lee Partners, with approximately 97% of shares voted cast in favor of the deal. The private equity firms initially offered $37.60 per share back in November 2006, but with the credit market downturn the deal was finalized at $36 per share.

San Francisco - MySpace (NYSE: NWS) will launch its music service joint venture with three of the four major record labels in September, CEO Chris DeWolfe told reporters at the Fortune Brainstorm conference yesterday, TechCrunch reported.

Seattle - Social music discovery service iLike announced on Monday that it has surpassed 30 million registered users, and said it signed a deal with RealNetworks (NASD: RNWK) to offer full-length song playback via that company's Rhapsody service.

Dublin, Ireland - Muzu TV, a music-focused Internet TV site that offers live concert videos, interviews, documentaries, TV specials and other related content, has raised $8 million in new venture capital financing, TechCrunch reported.

Ann Arbor, Michigan - Cloudtrade, a developer of mobile social networking applications, on Monday said it has added tracks from labels Ghostly International and A-Squared Management to its free, ad-supported mobile music download service. Other labels participating in a three-month evaluation period for the service include ATO and SCI Fidelity Records. Cloudtrade said that, in exchange for the free downloads, it asks users to interact with audio and video ads, or advergames on their phones.

Malmo, Sweden - A recent survey found that nearly eight in ten consumers don't put much stock in the opinions of professional music reviews, preferring instead to seek recommendations from online music stores or social networking applications (40%) or friends, family and other shoppers (41%).

London - CBS-owned (NYSE: CBS) social music discovery service Last.fm announced on Wednesday that it has partnered with Radiohead to offer the band's "In Rainbows" album for free streaming from its site, supported by advertising. The rights were licensed through the "one stop" digital licensing platform that Radiohead and publisher Warner/Chappell Music created at the end of last year. The band previously made "In Rainbows" available as a pay-what-you-want download; Last.fm said it has already been streamed 22,000 times in its first 12 hours of availability.

London - U.K. record company revenues outside direct sales of music -- such as licensing, and other areas outside the recording copyright -- increased by 13.8% to $242 million in 2007, and now account for 11.4% of their domestic income, according to a report from the BPI, a record label trade group. The report noted that income from new digital business models -- such as on-demand Web and mobile streaming -- grew by 55.7% in 2007.

New York - Users have reported experiencing problems with Qtrax, the free, legal peer-to-peer music download service that launched with licenses from the major labels this week, according to reports. Hypebot reported that searches for songs from many artists on major labels EMI and Universal Music returned notices that read "Coming Soon," while Wired.com said that tracks downloaded from the service initially would not play at all, but "are now playing just fine." A company representative told Wired.com, in reference to the gaps in its catalog, that "music is being added each and every day over the next few weeks in large batches."

New York - Major record label Universal Music Group on Tuesday announced a deal with CBS-owned (NYSE: CBS) Last.fm that will make UMG's music video catalog available for free, on-demand streaming on the social music discovery service. Under the deal, Universal and its artists will receive revenue for every video streamed; more specific details were not disclosed. "We want to offer a video library that rivals our unparalleled music catalogue, as we work towards Last.fm becoming the only place you need to go to for all music-related content, and this deal marks the first step towards that goal," said Last.fm co-founder Martin Stiksel.

New York - The principals at New York-based music marketing firm Cornerstone Promotion have created a network of music blogs -- including their own TheFader.com, TheTripwire.com and 1200squad.com -- and Gizmodo founder Pete Rojas' RCRD LBL, that is now attracting blue-chip advertisers, Fortune reports.

New York - Qtrax, the developer of a free, ad-supported music file-sharing service, said in a note on its website that it plans to launch its service next Wednesday, on June 18. The company notably misfired with its first launch announcement, claiming it had landed licensing deals with all the majors at an industry conference in January before the deals had been signed. Qtrax recently signed a licensing deal with major label EMI, and has also secured licenses from labels Universal Music, Sony BMG, Beggars Group and TVT, as well as all of the major music publishers.

New York - After receiving scant support from cable TV networks, eBay (NASD: EBAY) has shut down its Web-based TV exchange after just over a year in operation, Adweek reports.

New York - AOL (NYSE: TWX) on Tuesday launched its new AOL Radio service, which is now powered by CBS (NYSE: CBS) and will feature 150 local CBS Radio stations alongside more than 200 AOL Radio channels. CBS Radio will also sell advertising across the entire service, which will let users skip songs, and share streams with AIM users. The deal with CBS replaces AOL's previous partner, XM Satellite Radio. AOL also plans to release downloadable versions of AOL Radio for Winamp and the Mac in the coming weeks, and is working on widgets that will let users access stations directly third-party applications.

London - Bebo, an online social network owned by AOL, on Monday announced that it partnered with Universal Music UK on a new original Web drama series that will be "set amongst the real-life workings of the music company's West London headquarters." "The Secret Life of Sam King" will feature music from Universal artists, and generate revenue from brand integration -- with the first three months of the series to feature Sony Ericsson as sponsor.

New York - Glam Media, a group of vertical content and advertising networks targeting women, on Thursday announced that it has partnered with Russell Simmons-backed hip-hop social network Global Grind, to launch a new vertical network of sites and blogs targeting the hip-hop community. Earlier this week, the company announced the launch of another new vertical content network, Glam Family, to be headed by former SheKnows.com president and CEO Mike Meyers. Glam Family will launch in the third quarter, and focus on parenting, pregnancy and baby-related content.