Hypebot News Briefing

(Hypebot) — News roundup from Hypebot

Napster has quietly moved one of its more innovative services – free if slightly limited ad supported song streams – off the main Napster site to free.napster.com with no link provided from the main Napster site. It would appear to be a move to marginalize a service found to be unprofitable or at least not beneficial to Napster's core earner subscription music.

Sansa has announced a new line of flash memory players designed to compete with some of the new flash iPods and Nanos.

The Webby Awards have announced WebbyConnect industry conference to be held in Long Beach Oct 3-5.

Apple announced that it sold 1 million iPhones in the first 74 days of release.

Brussels based PIAS Group whose labels include Wall Of Sound bought a 50% stake in mobile music distributor and marketer Indie Mobile in a move designed to broaden the services it currently offers.

Microsoft has patented a new watermark technology called "stealthy audio watermarking,"that can tag songs to track origin and ownership without adding DRM that restricts usage. (PC) Amusing name for a product. Several similar schemes exist, but this may be the Mercedes of them all. I've wondered why everyone going DRM free is not suing one of them.

Personalized music steamer Mecora has changed its name to Social.FM and added new services designed to build community.

Ad supported download play SpiralFrog has added digital distributor INgrooves labels to its growing catalog.

Nickelodeon/MTVN Kids and Family Group announced the promotion of digital executive Jason Root to Senior Vice President, Digital, Nick.com and Nickatnite.com.