Google recently acquired an online content distribution start-up called Simplify Media, and now everyone seems to think the web giant plans to use the company's technology to launch some sort of music service accessed via an app on phones using its Android operating system.

The original Simplify Media service, which included an iPhone app, went offline in March promising an imminent relaunch. If Simplify is now used to power an Android-based streaming music service, the firm will be going in competition with the iPhone and any Apple-owned music services.

Speculation continues to be rife that Apple are about to launch a Spotify-style streaming music service that will be delivered to PCs via the iTunes player and to the iPhone via an app.

Perez Hilton has reportedly been offered $20 million for his website, PerezHilton.com, according to Gawker.

The deal has apparently been proposed by Avid Life Media, who paid the same amount for HotOrNot.com in 2008. The deal would see Hilton, real name Mario Lavandeira, paid $18 million up front, plus a further $2 million a year later.

Avid Life Media would apparently bring in fellow celebrity gossip blogger Zack Taylor and Nik Richie, who runs adult gossip site TheDirty.com to operate the site, with Gawker speculating that the PerezHilton.com URL would used as a "sort of massive traffic-forwarding address to a new gossip site".

No word yet on whether Perez plans to cash in.

Bauer Media has launched a new online radio player which will be used by all its radio stations, including Kiss, Magic, Kerrang! and local stations in the Big City Network. The radio firm says the new player will make it easier to access its programming online, that content will be available in a better quality, and that sell-through functionality will enable listeners to buy music that appears on its playlists.

Bauer's digital man Bruce Mitchell told reporters: "The new player is a great step forward for Bauer Media's radio brands online. It provides an easy to use interface and at the same time offers music purchase, right from within the player".

The commercial radio sector's online radio platforms, especially those offering listen again content on-demand, have generally lagged along way behind the BBC's iPlayer service, and the Beeb has made its expertise available in this domain for the creation of an industry wide UK Radioplayer which is due to launch later this year (though Radio Today report that launch will now be later than originally thought).

The Bauer player will compete with the UK Radioplayer, even though the radio group's stations will appear on the industry-wide platform.

Bearded magazine founder Gareth Main has teamed up with James Elliman from music blog MonoMusic and Anthony Chalmers from music promoters God Don't Like It to launch a new weekly podcast dedicated to independent music called, wait for it, the Independent Music Podcast.

All the music played will come from labels "100% independent from the majors", and the show will also champion some unsigned artists too. The show is accessible via MixCloud or can be downloaded via iTunes.

More at www.independentmusicpodcast.com

US music mag Rolling Stone today launches a new website which will have one of those crazy pay-walls in place, meaning users will have to pay a four dollar per month subscription fee to get access to the full site. Online-only content will still be free, but users will have to pay to access articles from the print magazine. A subscription will also get users access to the music mag's entire archive, which stretches back over 40 years.

Rolling Stone is unusual in the magazine world in that its print circulation is actually up, and its privately-owned publishers insist the title is still profitable. Still, it's known all important ad sales were down last year, so the subscription-based online service is presumably a bid to secure new additional revenues.

Given publishers across the newspaper and magazine industries are pondering over whether a subscription-based model could work for their online titles (given most original attempts at online subscriptions back in the day did not), I think it's fair to say a fair few media owner types will now be watching with interest how the all new Rolling Stone website fairs.

So, the election campaign has begun and, while it seems far too close to call with regards who might be forming the next government come May, what we do know is there will be a whole new generation of MPs taking seats in parliament this summer, with a large number of new parliamentarians expected to be voted in, if only because so many existing MPs have chosen to step down following a tricky twelve months for the political class.

And that could have an impact on the way the political community communicates with the electorate. PR firm Fishburn Hedges and researchers ComRes spoke to 100 new parliamentary candidates who seem likely to win a seat in the Commons on 6 May, and found - perhaps unsurprisingly - that digital platforms and social media are already much more important as communication channels for these future MPs.

83 of those interviewed are already using Facebook as a key communication tool, while 50 were also on Twitter. 84 said that Facebook, Twitter and blogs would play an important part in the way they communicate with constituents if they win at the election, while 82 said they expected to treat contacts made via social networks with the same importance as a formal written letter.

Fishburn Hedges Associate Director Simon Redfern told reporters: "A lot of new candidates have really embraced social media tools and talk to their constituents using these channels. But what's good for the campaign may not work as well in power. [But] new candidates are innovating with the tools available. You only have to look at Charlie Elphicke's (Conservative, Dover) use of Chat Map, Chuka Umunna's (Labour, Streatham) YouTube channel and Stella Creasy's (Labour, Walthamstow) Facebook page to see how modern political campaigning is changing".

So, this is interesting. Regional newspaper company Johnston Press is planning on dropping the paywalls it put up around some of its local papers as part of a pilot project to test the viability of charging for access to its online content.

Had the paywalls put up around the websites of six of its local papers been a success, it was thought Johnston Press would look to introduce a subscription system for its bigger regional titles, such as the Edinburgh daily broadsheet The Scotsman and the Leeds-based Yorkshire Post. But, according to the Press Gazette, the publisher's experiment with paywalls hasn't delivered overly positive results. A source told the trade website that subscriber numbers on one Scottish local paper was in the "low double figures". 

When they began the experiment, Johnston said the paywalls on six local papers were introduced to "get an understanding of what the customer dynamic is around paid-for content". Different subscription systems were employed on each of the six titles. The publisher hasn't officially commented on the results of the pilot project, but the Gazette says all six paywalls have come down sooner than was originally intended.

The Times, of course, is set to put a paywall around its website in June. Opinions are divided regards whether or not the Rupert Murdoch owned paper can successfully move its online operations to a subscription-based business model. It seems likely that national papers will have a better chance of making subscription services work than their regional counterparts, though the regional press need to find a viable online business model even more urgently than the nationals.

Another one from the political world, though one that provides a lesson in digital communications. An effort to seize the digital initiative in the upcoming General Election back-fired on Conservative supporters yesterday after the makers of a political website failed to grasp the risk of allowing Twitter-generated content to automatically appear on your site.
The website is called Cash-Gordon, and aims to embarrass the Labour government over the large donations the Labour Party receives from the union Unite, currently in the headlines for spearheading the unpopular British Airways strike. The website encourages visitors to read a speech by Tory frontbencher Michael Grove, to bug former Labour advisor and now Unite political director Charlie Wheelan via his social media accounts, and to check out what is being said about the campaign on the Twitter network.

Unfortunately the latter was enabled by a widget that showed any Twitter message containing the so called 'hash tag' #cashgordon. Labour supporters and general jokers on Twitter used this fact to tweet anti-Tory or just generally offensive remarks, alongside the required hash tag, knowing their contributions would then appear, albeit for a short time, on the home page of the anti-Labour website.

According to the Guardian, more advanced Twitter users then worked out how to embed images and programmes into their tweets that would add extra unwanted content to the political website, while others worked out how to use the Twitter widget to force a redirect, so that people going to the site would be taken to another, at one time the Labour Party website, at another the Rick Astley video that is so frequently used in online practical jokes these days.

Despite initially insisting a totally unregulated approach to #cashgordon tweets would be maintained, the website's owners later admitted misuse by the Twitterati had forced them to remove that element of the site. As of last night it was back, but with a moderator installed to decide which Tweets go live. So much so, one Tweeter remarked "Aw, #cashgordon tweets are no fun anymore now that the feed's moderated. I'm going to bed. Night all". That tweet made it through moderation though.

The lesson for digital PRs? Probably best not to put an unmoderated hash-tag-based Twitter feed on your home page. Especially if you are involved in anything vaguely political.

Facebook is threatening to sue the Daily Mail after the tabloid wrongly claimed that one of its freelance writers, a middle aged man, had successfully posed as a 14 year old girl on the uber-social network and that, "within seconds" he was approached by older men who "wanted to perform a sex act" (or, possibly, a 14 year old girl writing for a rival paper successfully posing as an older man, who knows?).

The Mail's big mistake was that while said freelance writer - Mark Williams-Thomas - had indeed posed as a 14 year old girl on a social network and had indeed been approached by a dodgy older man, the social network he was using was not Facebook, and he claims that the paper were well aware of that fact but incorrectly edited his article to name the market-leading social networking site anyway.

Facebook quickly threatened a libel action, and The Mail subsequently removed the firm's name from the story online and published an apology. Well, I say they removed the firm's name from the report online, they did cut it from the article and headline, but Facebook say they are still name-checked in the story's page title and URL, both of which influence Google searches. The paper admitted that because of "technical issues" (ie, no one at the Mail knows how to work a website) that was indeed still the case, but that the paper was now getting those Facebook mentions removed too.

Nevertheless, Facebook says it is still consulting its lawyers over the reputation damage done by the original story, and the paper's slow removal of all elements of it. A UK spokesman told the Guardian that the company was assessing what "brand damage has been done".

The producers of Sony Ericsson's quirky YouTube-based pop show Pocket TV, hosted by Radio 1 gossip man Matt Edmondson, are looking for an aspiring telly person interested in being a runner for the next series of the programme, which will be filmed between 5 Apr and 9 Jul.

It is a paid London-based position, and will basically involve helping the production team as they interview all sorts of bands and music types. It will no doubt involve a lot of lifting flight cases and making coffees, but it will be a great opportunity to learn how TV is made, and to make all sorts of great contacts. The successful candidate will also be asked to keep a video blog of their experience that will be posted on YouTube.

Any aspiring telly type over the age of 18 and available in London from April should upload a sixty second clip demonstrating why they'd be a great runner to their own YouTube account, and then send a message to PocketTVshow via the video site with the words RUNNER COMPETITION in the subject line and the vid attached. The deadline to enter is 15 Mar. Three people will be selected to compete for the final job by taking part in a challenge set by the aforementioned Matt Edmondson.

To find out what Pocket TV is all about go to www.youtube.com/pockettvshow

A new music recommendation service called mflow has announced a number of media partnerships ahead of its April launch.

mflow is a bit like a music-specific version of Twitter, users can recommend favourite tracks to their followers, who can then stream the recommended track in full once and, if they like it, buy the track, all via the one mflow widget. The recommender then gets 20% of the download fee as a credit to spend on other music recommended to them by the people s/he follows. The service has been in beta for a while, and will properly launch next month.

The media partnerships are with Bauer titles Q, Kerrang! and Mojo plus the NME and Clash, and will see the digital firm profiled across those partners' media. Each media will also start recommending top tunes via mflow. 

mflow marketing man Atan Burrows told Creative Business: "Reaching users through major music titles is a key part of our marketing strategy pre-launch. The titles we are partnering with are all trusted sources and play a vital role in the recommendation of new music. [And] all the titles we will be working with will also have their own profiles on mflow, which will allow them to recommend and share new music with their readers".

So, 6music might close after all, if The Times is to be believed. Well, at least the guys who set up that 'save 6music' Facebook Group (which, actually, was the RATM Xmas number one duo, the Morters) weren't wasting their time.

As previously reported, rumours circulated earlier this month that the popular (within the music community) digital music service was facing the axe. But it seemed those rumours were based on the simple fact the service was being reviewed by the BBC Trust, the body which oversees the running of the Corporation on behalf of the licence fee payer.

But, as we pointed out at the time, that was just a routine review, and 6music ticks lots of boxes that will please the Trust. And, indeed, when the Trustees reported back on its review they said they were happy for 6music to continue to operate in its current form, but urged the station to better market itself, after research showed the majority of licence fee payers didn't even know it exists.

But, it's possible the original rumours stemmed not from the Trust's review, but from insider knowledge of radical proposals being developed by BBC management to dramatically cut costs.

The proposals, which The Times claims to have seen, are clearly designed in part to satisfy commercial media owners and Conservative MPs who say the Corporation has over-expanded in recent years, and is now far too willing to compete with commercial broadcasters and publishers, capitalising on the unfair advantage of an unrivalled content archive, media brand portfolio and financial security, all made possible because of the unique way in which the BBC is funded. The secret proposals also presumably prepare the Corporation for the fact a Tory government is likely to block any licence fee increase.

According to The Times, a BBC report will propose shutting down the Corporation's youth strands Switch and Blast, letting the likes of ITV and Channel 4 target the potentially lucrative teenage market (lucrative as long as regulations regarding what can be advertised to the under 18s don't get any tighter, of course). BBC's online operations would be cut down to size, potentially reducing the size of the Corporation's website by half, and budgets available for buying up foreign imports would be cut by £100 million.

And commercial division BBC Worldwide would be told to concentrate on selling BBC programmes and rights to international broadcasters - originally its core purpose - rather than dabbling in other areas of the media business, a move which would necessitate Worldwide to sell off its publishing assets, and maybe even its music rights business and CD/DVD distribution arm 2entertain.

But the real news for music people will be the report's recommendations regarding BBC radio. Radio 2 would be told to increase the amount of comedy and documentaries it airs in prime time, reducing the amount of music and celebrity content (actually a recommendation of the aforementioned BBC Trust Review), while the Asian Network and 6music would be canned altogether.

The Times says the proposals have been drawn up by the BBC's Director Of Policy & Strategy John Tate, who previously worked for the Conservatives and presumably has an insight into what kind of measures would placate BBC critics within the Tory top guard, who most assume will be in government by June.

Tate's ideas would accommodate a licence fee freeze in 2013, and make available another £600 million to be pumped into "higher-quality content" - the mantra being "quality over quantity", to overcome criticisms that the BBC has used its safe licence fee income and booming BBC Worldwide revenues to grossly over expand in the last two decades.

Of course, even if The Times' report is accurate, it is not known how much credence these proposals will be given by BBC chief Mark Thompson and his closest allies at the top of the Corporation, especially given Tory culture spokesman Jeremy Hunt seemed to be softening his resolve to radically reform the BBC at a Q&A with key media people in London this week, going as far as to admit the Corporation in its current form "sort of worked".

Tate's proposals for 6music and the Asian Network are likely to be most controversial. The proposals to cut back the Beeb's commercial operations, their website and their more mainstream youth output are all things that would directly satisfy the Corporation's commercial critics, not least The Times owner Rupert Murdoch. And an overhaul of Radio 2 would placate, to an extent, the UK commercial radio sector, who see that BBC station as their biggest rival these days.

But 6music and the Asian Network are very much public service-based operations that no commercial player would really have any interest in competing with. The fact only 20% of the people the BBC Trust surveyed had even heard of 6music is sort of the point, it's a niche service, and that's why no one in the commercial sector would ever go there.

However, while niche, 6music plays an important role in British music, given that ('Later' aside) BBC TV has basically shunned music programming completely, and prime time on Radios 1 and 2 is all about the mainstream. And, relatively speaking, 6music performs this role on a relatively modest budget. Plus, on a higher level, the station ensures the BBC has connections into the wider music community, and helps the station build up early-career archive content of tomorrow's big talent, something the Corporation is yet to capitalise on.

It's possible that proposals to axe public service operations like 6music and the Asian Network, in order to fulfil the Tory's cost cutting demands on the BBC, is really a bid to rally opposition against any government-forced downsizing. Though, I suspect that isn't Tate's aim. Rather, he feels there is a need to show the BBC is seriously considering cutting back its radio empire, and shutting the doors completely on two services is easier than downsizing the others.

Though, given the widely acknowledged excesses at both Radios 1 and 2 (who together employ more people to work on their breakfast shows than the entire workforce at a commercial station like Xfm), it would be very easy to free up the kind of money needed to run niche services like 6music and the Asian Network simply by bringing the two big BBC stations into the 21st century staffing-wise.

The BBC are yet to comment on the Times article, so it remains to been how serious these proposals are. I might go and sign up to the aforementioned save 6music Facebook page in the meantime. Just in case.

www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=278123313911&v=info

Spotify has announced the first ever music video to appear on the music streaming service. Not only that, but it's an exclusive, too. And it's for a song by Jimi Hendrix. Oh, and it's directed by Julien Temple. So that's four good things already. Everyone at Spotify, you are hereby allowed to go and have a sit down in the comfiest chair available for the next 20 minutes.

The video for 'Bleeding Heart', a song which appears on new Hendrix rarities compilation 'Valleys Of Neptune', depicts Jimi performing at Glastonbury. Temple used some kind of black magic to create the video, as Hendrix never actually performed at that particular festival. How is it done? No one knows.

As well as the video, which is available now to all users, Spotify Premium subscribers will be able to listen to 'Valleys Of Neptune' from 4 Mar, ahead of its release on 8 Mar.

MUZU this week launched a new jukebox service which makes it easier to navigate, playlist and play music from the video service's vast catalogue. In particular, the new service recommends videos based around your initial artist choice (in a Pandora stylee), and then allows users to search the MUZU catalogue and add tracks to their playlist while concurrently enjoying the recommended vids, and all within one browser window. I've only had a little play, but it looks kinda cool, and I intend to have a proper delve this weekend.

The service is a bit like a "video version of Spotify", though it is worth noting that, although free to use, no ads will play in the mix on the jukebox service. The MUZU release launching the new service notes: "While MUZU.TV is an advertising-funded free music website, it has been careful to leverage more innovative ad formats such as 'skinning' the outside of the video player with premium entertainment-related advertisement, which don't interrupt the viewing experience in any way".

Muse bassist Chris Wolstenholme has said he is disappointed by those previously reported plans put forward by Warner Music CEO Edgar Bronfman Jr to back away from free streaming services, especially in the US market. Muse, of course, are signed to Warner.

Wolstenholme told BBC Newsbeat: "It's like taking your song off the radio, isn't it? You're instantly taking your song away from a group of potential listeners. The corporations are setting the rules on these things because they're clutching at straws. They've lost so much money on record sales because of the internet. I do sometimes feel that this whole restriction that's been set on how your music can get out there these days, that doesn't ever really come from the bands. It's coming from the corporations behind everything. As far as bands are concerned, you just want people to hear your music whichever way they can".

An Italian court has given three Google execs six month suspended sentences for allowing a video of a teenager with Down's Syndrome being bullied to appear on the search firm's Google Video website.

It's a landmark ruling that could totally change the liabilities of internet companies which allow third parties to publish content via their websites, in Italy anyway. If it did, the logistical demands it might put on such companies could make YouTube-style operations impossible to run.

The three Google men were accused of breaking Italian defamation and privacy laws for allowing the video to be streamed on their website, even though they weren't involved in making the video, or even aware it was on their system. An Italian judge knocked back the defamation claims, but upheld the privacy law charges.

Needless to say, Google did not welcome the ruling. An angry Chief Legal Officer, David Drummond, told the BBC: "I intend to vigorously appeal this dangerous ruling. It sets a chilling precedent. If individuals like myself and my Google colleagues who had nothing to do with the harassing incident, its filming or its uploading onto Google Video can be held criminally liable solely by virtue of our position at Google, every employee of any internet hosting service faces similar liability".

There are parallels between this case and civil cases being fought elsewhere in the world around copyright issues against Google's principle video sharing service, YouTube. MTV owners Viacom in the US, and various indie music firms in Germany, are suing Google claiming that, although YouTube removes copyright infringing content its users upload as soon as it is made aware of said infringing content's existence, it should still be liable for any infringement that occurs between upload and takedown.

Such liabilities - if a court ruled they existed - would mean YouTube would have to be much more careful in policing content as it is uploaded and before it puts said content live. But Google insists that, because it has a takedown system in place to remove infringing content once it is alerted of its presence on the YouTube website, it is not liable for that temporary infringement. Case law in the US seems to suggest Google is right in that jurisdiction, though an interpretation of German copyright law on this matter is pending.

Nevertheless, Google has been developing increasingly sophisticated technology to spot content that copyright owners have specifically asked not to be streamed on YouTube, which in theory can block any third parties from uploading that content. However, it is unlikely any technology could ever be clever enough to block unsavoury content like that which was uploaded in the Italian case.

If Google, or, even worse, individual Google execs, can be held liable for such content going live on their sites, then every upload might need to go before a human being before going live, which just isn't realistic for a global free-to-use service where millions of videos are uploaded every month.

The good news for Google is that most legal experts reckon this Italian judge's interpretation of privacy laws in this regard is unusual, and would not be repeated by judges in other jurisdictions. According to the BBC, the UK's former Information Commissioner Richard Thomas said the case gave privacy laws a "bad name".

Chewy gum people Trident are looking for someone willing to take in thirty music festivals over thirty weeks in return for thirty grand, which, I think it's fair to say, wouldn't be the hardest job in the world. All you'd have to do in return is document the experience via Trident's festival website, through tweets, blogs, photos and videos, with reviews, gossip and celebrity interviews.

The festival trek would take in every kind of music fest in every corner of the world most are tbc, but already in the schedule are Bestival, Sonisphere and Creamfields, though the latter is the Buenos Aires edition of Creamfields, so that's already taking you someway beyond the British Isles.

If this all sounds like a very easy deal, it is. But the challenge is getting the job, which will involve an online application, a face to face interview and, if you make it down to the final ten, an all-day assessment in front of a celebrity panel including 6music irritant George Lamb and Bestival supremo Rob da Bank.

More info and application details at www.tridentgum.co.uk

The Guardian's iPhone app has been downloaded over 100,000 times since its launch last December, the newspaper group has just announced.

I don't know if that's good going or not, by comparison just over 300,000 people buy The Guardian paper each day.

The app is unique in terms of the broadsheet's online output in that you have to pay to download it - £2.39 – whereas all other Guardian digital services are free and bosses there, unlike bosses at other newspaper groups, have said they intend to keep it that way in the medium term.

The Guardian themselves seem to think selling 100,000 apps in two months is pretty damn good going. Their Digital Content boss Emily Bell told CreativeBusiness: "Breaking the 100,000 download barrier in just over two months is an enormous achievement for the Guardian App. The feedback we received at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona last week from both the industry and users was very complimentary, and we are thrilled that the app is being showcased in Apple's latest television campaign".

With the General Election looming ever closer it seems increasingly doubtful the Digital Economy Bill, with its controversial three-strike provisions for combating online piracy, will become law before parliament is dissolved for the big vote. Nevertheless, those lobbying in favour of the legislation seem optimistic it can be pushed through the House Of Commons in time.

But doing so will probably need the cooperation of opposition parties, and the Tories, while basically supporting most of the Bill's copyright provisions, have issues with other aspects of the proposed legislation, which, as a real mish mash of a proposals, covers all sorts of things relating to the media, internet and telecommunications.

Nevertheless, the debate about the Bill's copyright section, in and around parliament, continues. Yesterday a letter signed by an eclectic bunch of creative industry men, including Simon Cowell, was sent to MPs and peers urging the political types to ensure the legislation gets through parliament before the election. Alongside Cowell, other signatories of the letter included author Terry Pratchett, Working Title Film chief Tim Bevan, film director Paul Greengrass and TV producer Stephen Garrett.

For a very brief moment yesterday it seemed that perhaps the efforts of that five, and a multitude of lobbyists from across the content industries, had been unsuccessful when 10 Downing Street responded to a petition on its website against the disconnection of file-sharers by saying the government would not allow those who access music off the internet illegally to have their internet connections disconnected.

Though that was a rather political statement allowing the prime minister's office to seem like it was responding to the petition but without having to change any policy. Unlike in France (and, for a time, Hull), full-on disconnections of internet access have never been part of the three-strikes proposals in the UK, where the ultimate sanction would be the suspension of a file-sharer's net access, not disconnection.

In related news, rumours that a new global treaty might sneak three-strikes into law through the back door seem to be unfounded. As our sister media CMU reported back in November, ministers from various countries are currently involved in drafting an Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement, and there was word that that treaty would oblige signatories to introduce a three-strikes style system for combating online piracy law into their own copyright systems

But Canadian academic and all round expert on these sorts of things Michael Geist has posted on his blog what seems to be the relevant section from a secret draft of the treaty, and there is no mention of three-strikes. Rather the agreement would oblige signatories to apply an approach similar to current US copyright law with regards online piracy.

For Geist's home country, Canada, the treaty might force the government there to tighten up their copyright laws, and in doing so that would overcome various issues raised by American copyright owners regarding the tendency of Canadian courts to find in the favour of file-sharers.

But for the UK, while it might ingrain a system for copyright owners issuing take-down notices to the likes of YouTube into law, and formalise the protections enjoyed by ISPs who inadvertently provide the infrastructure for copyright infringement, it probably wouldn't mean any noticeable difference to the way things work now. Certainly, in its current form, it wouldn't force the UK or anywhere else to introduce three-strikes (not that the current UK government needs forcing on such things, of course).