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Reuters are reporting that Warner Music has signed a deal with digital media site 7digital.com to provide its catalogue in the MP3 format, which can be played on nearly all music devices.

Warner Music International, a division of Warner Music Group said its catalogue — with hits from James Blunt and the Red Hot Chili Peppers — would be available to 7digital.com customers in the UK, Ireland, Spain, France and Germany. The site is the first major European download store to offer Warner’s tracks in the DRM-free MP3 format — 7digital offers EMI’s catalogue in the MP3 format and aims to sign more labels soon.

Founded in 2003, 7 Digital’s singles service distributes singles to over 200 partner sites such as AOL, MSN, Yahoo, and NME. 7 Digital is established in the music industry by providing the download capability for all the major record labels and over 200 independents. In addition, 7 Digital helps artists such as Gorillaz and Coldplay make downloads available directly from their own websites.

Investors: Balderton Capital, Sutton Place Managers

Tags: 7Digital, AOL, Balderton Capital, MSN, NME, Sutton Place Managers, Warner Music International, Yahoo

Great blog post by Loic Le Meur, Founder of Seesmic, explaining how he formed the company and raised his intial investment. what’s that old adage? - Oh yes - ‘ its not what you know, it is who you know’.

I closed the initial funding of Seesmic in September 2007. The main investment came from Atomico’s Niklas Zennstrom and Janus Friis (they invested $5.5 million on the $6 million). Talking to bloggers all the time, I have not been very good at keeping the secret as Om Malik was the first to talk about it on October 8, 2007. On November 28, Liz Gannes got almost the entire list of investors right. We have never really hidden the funding as a partial investor list was even on our company backgrounder at the last Demo conference (by the way see our DEMO video if you want to learn about Seesmic in 6 minutes). So the only real news today is the full list of investors.

We should have made it “officially” public for a while but I did not want to do it until all the paperwork was done and signed. That happened last week. Getting 14 investors on board – most of whom are individuals and not through funds - takes time.

Niklas Zennstrom and I have been friends for years and we have been wanting to launch a project together for a while. We both know that the media that has not really changed since the growth of the Internet is TV. Most of our friends do not watch TV anymore or watch it only with a laptop on their knees. TV will totally change in the future, we all know that. While Niklas and Janus are focusing on the high end video content with Joost, I have always been fascinated by the conversations.

I explained to Niklas that for me, the quality of conversations that I have enjoyed on blogs and social software since 2003 had to happen in video and that simply isn’t happening yet. I said I wanted to make this happen and make it my next company and Niklas immediately [Read more]

Tags: AOL, Goldman Sachs, Google, IPRO, Joost, LinkedIn, Pulver, Seesmic, Skype, SofTech VC, SupportSoft, TechCrunch, Topica

So as Google takes a strong stance against Microsoft’s unsolicited offer for Yahoo, what are we mere mortals to make of the battle of the titans of tech? It’s complicated - it’s messy - it’s turning hot - it’s no place for the weak. Take my two-minute test to see if you have what it takes to shape the future of the Internet….. [Read more]

Tags: AOL, Google, Microsoft, Yahoo

Ah, I see a crap of marketeers have screwed up another ‘launch’. NEXAGE, a mobile video white label solutions provider have whacked out a press release announcing the availability of their second generation solution, PhoneCast Pro 2. Trouble is they forgot to update their website with the details! For those of you who cannot wait for the marketing department to catch up with their own releases here it is (warning - it is written in marketing speak)…

PhoneCast Pro 2.0 reduces the complexity of ingestion, management, publication and distribution of video content, thus enabling media companies and content providers to offer mobile video services directly to mobile users. PhoneCast Pro 2.0 offers a complete end-to-end hosted solution that meets all the rich media content delivery and social networking needs of media companies. The expanded PhoneCast Pro 2.0 platform enables clients to quickly and cost-effectively “go mobile” with a solution that is highly attractive to their customers. The streamlined efficiency of the platform enables clients to simply give NEXAGE a link to their content and NEXAGE manages the rest.

PhoneCast Pro 2.0 now incorporates enhanced features that bring the full range of Internet social networking services to the mobile web. It enables media companies and others to increase “stickiness” by developing a community around their content, including rating, commenting, sharing with others, buddy lists, online chatting, blogs, and much more.

PhoneCast Pro 2.0 provides full support for the insertion of text, banner, and video advertisements and promotions for mobile video and live TV programming, and is fully integrated with mobile ad networks such as Millennial Media, Third Screen Media (AOL / Advertising.com division), Nokia Ad Services, Admob, and various video Ad providers to be announced. The PhoneCast Pro 2.0 Ad Network Optimization Engine ensures that media companies will see high Ad fill rates and high monetization rates for their mobile entertainment services launched with PhoneCast Pro 2.0.

Tags: AdMob, AOL, Nexage, Nokia

It may be breaking the faith - the unspoken bond between all males - but I quite like to cook. I’m no TV chef you’ll understand. But pottering about in the kitchen kind of helps me relax. Spaghetti Bolognese - my favorite dish. Easy to knock together and a fantastic taste. I also like flinging together a nice stew - a bit like the folks over at travel-log social site WAYN (Where Are You Now?).

They have put together a fantastic stew. It started in 2002 and [Read more]

Tags: AOL, WAYN