x If you're attending this year's NAB 2007 in Las Vegas, we hope you include the RAIN Las Vegas Summit '07 in your plans. This year, our lauded annual Summit will be all day Monday, April 16th, (with our customary cocktail hour following), just steps from the Las Vegas Convention Center at the Renaissance Las Vegas Hotel. (That's the Convention Center on the left in the photo above.) Over the next few weeks, we'll announce the meeting agenda and give you a run-down of scheduled guest speakers. We hope you can join us! xx

From Billboard.biz: "Motorola's iRadio mobile music solution is on hold for  a while.

"The much-hyped service that had been in beta testing for more than a year now is going back to the drawing board for some major revisions...

"According to Motorola's Dave Ulmer,... U.S. wireless operators balked at the idea of mobile phones that cached Internet radio streams via a PC connection, and instead wanted it to be  a streaming music service that used their networks.

"Operators in Asia and Europe are more open to the original iRadio model, and would adopt iRadio-capable device more quickly he says, but Motorola has no music licensing agreements in those areas like it does in the U.S."

Read the entire article at Billboard.biz.

From Digital Music News: "Music-focused social networking destination iLike has now reached 500,000 subscribers, according to a company announcement issued Wednesday...

"Also excited is Ticketmaster, which invested a healthy $13.3 million in the service in December.  That offered the company a 25 % share in [iLike], and considerable sway over the strategic course charted by the Seattle-based startup. 

"The iLike system wisely includes an iTunes add-on, a feature that allows users to easily share playlists and actively save wishlists... Users can also download free MP3s directly from the Sidebar, or click to buy music from the iTunes Store.

"The company reported that more than 50 % of logins result in a purchase, or the filing of a song in a wishlist for purchase consideration later. 

"iLike has also released a limited preview version of the Sidebar software for Windows Media users, and a MySpace add-on allows users to display and play favorite playlists.  The latest subscriber tally comes just four months after the concept was launched."

Read the entire article at Digital Music News.

From the Hollywood Reporter: "Mel Karmazin is promising consumers a lot with his proposal to combine the nation's only satellite radio services, but he told lawmakers Wednesday not to take his word for it.

"In testimony before the House Antitrust Task Force, the Sirius Satellite Radio chief said he was willing to abide by conditions in his proposed merger with XM Radio that would keep prices low and consumer choices high...

"The executive told lawmakers, 'We're saying we are not going to raise our prices, and we are going to offer to consumers something they have not had before.'

"Karmazin told the panel he would be willing to agree to regulation on prices, device interoperability and other fronts for some period of time...

"David Rehr, president and CEO of the National Association of Broadcasters,accused Karmazin of telling lawmakers what they want to hear...

"Some lawmakers were more supportive. Rep. Rick Boucher, D-Va., cited a string of data he said shows that people who listen to satellite radio also spend a great deal of time listening to both terrestrial radio and Internet-delivered services. (previous RAIN coverage here)

"'I think these are very interesting statistics that clearly shows this is a unified market,' he said.

Read the entire article at the Hollywood Reporter.