The Daily Swarm

CNET:

Apple executives have spoken to the top four recording companies about plans to offer a streaming music service free of charge to consumers, multiple music industry sources told CNET….Apple’s managers haven’t revealed many details about their plans but did discuss offering iTunes users a means to store copies of their music libraries on Apple’s servers. The benefits to an iTunes user would include the ability to back up music and access songs off the Web from any Internet-connected device and conceivably from anywhere in the world….Apple’s song downloads apparently aren’t affected. Apple has told some music executives that they see the streaming feature as a “value add” that could help stimulate download sales. Apple indicated in talks that the streaming service could be ready to roll out as soon as this spring.

Appleindsider.com:

According to multiple sources in the music industry, Apple has been shopping around the idea of a streaming music service that would allow users the ability to back up and access their music from any Internet-connected device. CNET writes that Apple sees the cloud-based streaming feature as a “value add” that could help to stimulate music download sales. All indications point to the service being up and running as soon as spring of this year.

Washington Post:

Buried all the way at the bottom of the Wall Street Journal’s latest piece about the Apple Tablet is a very interesting nugget of information. Apple is apparently gearing up to launch a cloud-based iTunes replacement called iTunes.com as soon as this summer, WSJ states citing sources familiar with the matter.

CNN Money:

Apple (AAPL) is about to use its $85 million purchase of Lala to create a browser-based music service that will let users access their iTunes music collections from the Web….The service could become available as early as next Wednesday, says Robertson, a 12-year digital music industry veteran, as part of Apple’s “latest creation” extravaganza….But you don’t have to wait until next week to see how it works. You can dowload Lala’s free Music Mover from Lala.com and start uploading your library today. You just have to be prepared to give it some time to get the job done….I started uploading my library three days after Apple’s Lala deal was announced. A week later, the Music Mover was still hard at work in the background, uploading and transcoding a 6,000-song library that by today’s standards is rather modest. Here are the facts: