Spotify

The long-awaited Spotify app for iPad is here. And your first reaction is likely to be, "Hey, that's a nice-looking app. " The paid streaming music service's 17 million tracks are now available to Apple's tablet users. The iPad app, Version 0.5.0 of Spotify's iOS app, is iPad-3-ready with Retina graphics and high-definition album art. Users can search for playlists, other subscribers and music from the same view. The "What's New" section features recommended albums, trending playlists among friends and nearby, as well as new releases.

An iPad app of popular music streaming service Spotify is "in the works," according to CEO Daniel Ek.  That was his response as the question bubbled up during the announcement of a marketing deal with Coca-Cola on Wednesday.  No details were revealed about the app, which tablet users have been eagerly awaiting. The current offering for the iPhone doesn't take full advantage of the features of the iPad. Spotify has been on a roll with announcements, some received better than others . In addition to the announcement that Coke is it, Spotify recently launched a play button for embedding across the Web and a listen button to artist pages on Facebook.

Spotify is hoping that Coke will teach the world to click its play button. The Swedish digital music service on Wednesday announced a broad-ranging marketing deal withCoca-Cola Co.that could help turbocharge the number of people who are exposed to, and ultimately sign up for, Spotify. Although the partnership does not involve any money changing hands, both parties describe it as invaluable to their efforts to market their products. For Spotify, the burgeoning music-streaming service that launched in the United States in July, getting access to Coca-Cola's formidable global marketing engine will come in handy as it expands its international footprint.

A six-story-tall Doritos vending machine served as the backdrop for performances by artists such as Snoop Dog, White Denim and Mystikal at last week's South by Southwest Festival and Conference in Austin, Texas. It was perhaps the most impressive display of corporate sponsorship at the annual festival, which started out 25 years ago as a way to showcase indie bands but has since become a massive, mainstream music event. Chevrolet, Pepsi and FreeCreditScore.com were among 10 official sponsors of the festival, while Taco Bell, Marlboro and Spotify joined other big business names whose banners adorned Austin's dozens of live music stages.

Sir Paul McCartney is one of the best-known musicians on the planet, thanks to his years as a Beatle and a chart-topping solo artist. Yet when he sang a newly released number on the Grammy Awards telecast Sunday, the response from some corners of the Internet was a blank stare. "Wait, who is Paul McCartney?" read one nonplussed tweet. "To be honest, I have no idea," read another. Although the overwhelming majority of music fans aren't so clueless, such reactions reflect what one label executive calls the high "noise floor" of the Internet: There's so much music being created and distributed, it's hard for anyone's work to get noticed.

HTC's $300-million investment in Beats Electronics has, so far, resulted in Beats earbuds being packed with Android smartphones. But the partnership may soon take a major step forward as HTC and Beats are reportedly looking to develop a music service that may end up challenging the likes of Apple's iTunes and Spotify. According to a report from the news site  GigaOm , HTC and Beats will roll out a new line of smartphones and tablets with Beats audio features and possibly even a music streaming service that could be unveiled as early as the Mobile World Congress event in Barcelona, Spain, later this month.  Om Malik, GigaOm founder and reporter, wrote in the report that HTC is leaning on the connections of Beats co-founder and Chairman Jimmy Iovine's connections in the music industry to build a streaming service that "will be offered as a default music client on HTC phones and tablets.

Hoping to attract more users and keep them enthralled with its digital music service, Spotify has partnered with other Web and media companies such as Rolling Stone magazine, Songkick and TuneWiki to juice up its service with articles, reviews, recommendations, lyrics and other content. Rolling Stone, for example, will integrate its year-end magazine issue with Spotify's service so readers can instantly play most, if not all, of the songs featured in the articles. The integration will involve the magazine's future issues as well.

Four months after Swedish digital music sensation Spotify launched its music service in the U.S., the company has amassed more than 4 million users who can play any song they want from Spotify's catalog of more than 15 million songs — absolutely free. For Spotify, however, those songs don't come cheap. Every time a user plays a song, Spotify must pay an undisclosed royalty to music labels and publishers. Like a high roller who keeps doubling down, Spotify is optimistic it can eventually make money, even if it means giving away music at the outset.

Best Buy Co. has given up on the increasingly crowded digital music market, selling its struggling Napster online music service to competitor Rhapsody in exchange for a minority stake in the combined company. The deal comes three years after Best Buy paid $121 million to acquire Napster Inc., the first wildly popular source of Internet piracy that morphed into a legitimate paid music service. It gives Rhapsody more power to compete against hot digital music upstarts such as Spotify, MOG and Rdio.

With growth in international sales offsetting a decline in the U.S., Warner Music Group posted a 5% uptick in revenue and narrower losses in its most recent quarter. In its first financial report since Access Industries completed its $3.3-billion acquisition of Warner on July 20, the record label posted sales of $686 million in its third quarter, which ended June 30, up from $652 million a year earlier. It lost $46 million, or 30 cents a share, in the quarter, down from a $55-million loss, or 37 cents a share, a year earlier.