Research in Motion is launching its new social music service, BBM Music for BlackBerry. Like competing services from Spotify, Rdio, Rhapsody, or MOG, BBM Music charges customers a monthly fee for the ability to stream music on demand. But there’s a huge twist with RIM’s model. First, the service costs just $5 per month, which is about half the price of competing services. Second — you only… Read more »

The BBC iPlayer service allows British residents to stream television programs to a computer or mobile device for free… or rather, for the price of the license fee everyone pays to use a television in the UK in the first place. And that’s why it’s taken so long for the BBC to offer the iPlayer service outside of the UK — the broadcaster has had… Read more »

Online video service Hulu is expanding the number of smartphones that officially support the company’s Android app. A few weeks ago Hulu launched the Hulu Plus app for Android, but at the time it only worked on 6 devices. Now the HTC Evo 4G, HTC Thunderbolt, and HTC myTouch G2 and 4G phones can also use the app. That brings the total number of supported… Read more »

Sony has released a new streaming music app for Google Android smartphones. It’s called Music Unlimited and it’s powered by the company’s Qriocity streaming music service. The app is available as a free download from the Android Market, but you’ll need to sign up for a monthly subscription plan to actually stream any music. Sony is offering free 30-day trials, but if you forget to… Read more »

The Financial Times has decided to replace its aging mobile applications for iOS, Android and other platforms with a new web app based on HTML 5. The move could pave the way for more web apps based on the latest web standards — but not just because of the new features HTML5 offers. The new web app also offers the FT a way to provide… Read more »

Slacker’s premium mobile music service is now offering on-demand mobile music streaming for $10 per month. Slacker’s free music service generates a station for you based on a song or artist and finds more songs based on what you like and what you don’t. The free version was restricted featured ads and a limited number of skips, while a $3.99/month premium version bypassed those restrictions and… Read more »

EPIX is a cable channel and web portal with more than 3,000 streaming movies available to subscribers. Now the company is getting ready to expand its horizons with a series of apps for mobile phones, tablets, set-top-boxes, and internet connected TVs. According to the press release, Google Android and BlackBerry Playbook apps are in the works, as well as versions for Samsung televisions and Blu-ray… Read more »

The New York Times launched a new version of its iPhone app last week, in advance of the launch of a new paywall which would only allow readers to view 20 articles per month for free on the web, or the the Top News sections for free on a mobile device. I kind of wondered what would happen if you didn’t upgrade to the new… Read more »

Sure, one of the key selling points of Windows Phone 7 is the Zune Pass subscription service which lets you steam unlimited music to your device for about $10 per month. But if you’d rather use the popular Rhapsody service… well, now you can. Rhapsody launched an official app for Windows Phone 7 this week. It’s available as a free download from the Zune Marketplace…. Read more »

A number of companies that offer streaming music apps for the iPhone have expressed concern that Apple’s new susbcription rules could make it difficult to continue doing business in the App Store. So when Kazaa decided to launch a new music streaming service, instead of submitting an app to App Store for approval and sharing 30% of all subscription revenue with Apple, the company decided… Read more »