Beats

Apple is reportedly in talks with Beats Electronics on a possible music streaming service partnership.

Sources say Apple CEO Tim Cook and Internet products chief Eddy Cue met with Beats CEO Jimmy Iovine to learn more about the Beats' upcoming "Daisy" streaming music service.

Relatedly, Beats announced yesterday $60 million in new funding for the project from an investment group that includes Warner Music owner Len Blavatnik, to bankroll the service's planned late-2013 launch.

It was early last September when word first leaked that Apple was planning to launch its own customizable streaming music service (RAIN coverage here) -- but on that was more of an Internet radio/Pandora competitor.

Beats is the Dr. Dre/Iovine company that makes the popular Beats headphones, and owns music subscription service MOG (which is being rebuilt as "Daisy"). At CES in January, Iovine told AllThingsDigital's Peter Kafka he'd long been trying to push the late Apple founder Steve Jobs towards creating a streaming music subscription service (see RAIN coverage here). Also at CES, Iovine and his company named former Yahoo! Music and Topspin CEO Ian Rogers (RAIN coverage here) CEO of Daisy. More on Daisy in RAIN here.

Read more about Apple and Beats from Hypebot.com here and Reuters here.

Beats Electronics CEO (and Universal Music exec and record industry legend) Jimmy Iovine thinks that when it comes to creating a music service that fans will embrace, the tech guys don't stand a chance.

"I was shocked at how culturally inept most consumer electronics companies are... You can build Facebook, you can build YouTube, you can build Twitter — you can be a tech company and do that," he told AllThingsDigital's Peter Kafka at CES. "Subscription [music] needs a programmer. It needs culture. And tech guys can’t do that. They don’t even know who to hire. They’re utilities."

Obviously, Iovine has faith that his company, with "guys who know music and culture" like himself, Dr. Dre, and Trent Reznor at the helm, is far more suited to creating the killer streaming music experience.

"[Other music subscription] companies, these services, all lack curation... There’s no curation. That’s what we did as a record label, we curated," he said. "We are heavy on curation, and we believe it’s a combination of human and math... Right now, somebody’s giving you 12 million songs, and you give them your credit card, and they tell you 'good luck.' You need to have some kind of help. I’m going to offer you a guide... a trusted voice, and it’s going to be really good."

Interestingly, Iovine says he'd long been trying to push the late Apple founder Steve Jobs towards creating a streaming music subscription service.

"He wasn’t keen on it right away. [Beats co-founder] Luke Wood and I spent about three years trying to talk him into it... He didn’t want to pay the record companies enough. He felt that they would come down, eventually... I think in the end Steve was feeling it, but the economics... he wanted to pay the labels [for subscriptions], but [the fees were] not going to be acceptable to them."

At CES, Iovine and his company named former Yahoo! Music and Topspin CEO Ian Rogers (RAIN coverage here) CEO of Beats' music subscription service, codenamed "Daisy" (which will likely be a repurposed MOG, which Beats owns). More on Daisy in RAIN here.

Read the AllThingsDigital interview with Beats' Iovine here.

Beats Electronics has named Ian Rogers as CEO of its new music project "Daisy." Rogers will also become part of the leadership of Beats-owned music subscription service MOG.

We reported on Beats' Daisy project in RAIN here.

Rogers has been CEO of Topspin Media (a tech provider of retail and marketing software for musicians and other content creators) since 2008, after a stint as general manger of Yahoo! Music (including, at the time, Yahoo's online radio service).

Billboard reports, "Daisy... is Beats' revamping of the former MOG service, which Beats acquired last year. The service is set to launch in late 2013 as a stand-alone company under the Beats Electronics umbrella." Daisy's chief creative officer is Nine Inch Nails founder Trent Reznor.

Read more in Billboard here. and in AllThingsDigital here.

Musician Trent Reznor (Nine Inch Nails) -- who's now also chief Creative Officer for Beats Electronics -- is hinting about a revolutionary new music recommendation platform from his company, set to launch in 2013.

Reznor's characterization of the platform as a combination of expert curation and machine intelligence sounds more than a little like customizable online radio (a la Pandora, etc.).

Reznor told The New Yorker (here) (as reported by Billboard, here) the technology "uses mathematics to offer suggestions to the listener... based partly on suggestions made by connoisseurs, making it a platform in which the machine and the human would collide more intimately."

Hypebot.com (here) observes, "Reznor's actual comments suggest that he isn't aware of the history or landscape of music curation and discovery. Yet, given that he is Trent Reznor, it's also possible that they really are pushing such services to a new level."

Beats, which owns the popular Beats By Dre line of audio accessories as well as the on-demand music service MOG, has code-named the service "Daisy."

Billboard writes, "Music discovery, or 'the problem of what to listen to next,' is a vexing one for music services as well as record companies that believe people will buy more music if they were exposed to more bands that match their tastes."

Last week competitor Spotify added a new feature that offers playlists from musicians, celebrities, and genre experts, customized to the listener's own playlists, preferences, and listening patterns.

It's official: audio technology company Beats Electronics is acquiring music streaming service MOG, reports USA Today.

Terms of the deal have not been disclosed, but the L.A. Times and Evolver.fm pin the figure at less than $10 million. Engadget writes, "MOG is said to have raised $33 million in funding to date, so that might give you a ballpark figure."

We first heard rumors about the acquisition in March (RAIN coverage here). Beats Electronics is the company behind those iconic Beats By Dr. Dre headphones. It's also partly owned by major mobile device maker HTC (though it's "unclear how or whether" that company is involved in this deal, reports Engadget).

Evolver.fm's Eliot Van Buskirk sees possibilities for HTC though: "Between Beats, MOG, and its own stuff, HTC can now connect the dots between smartphones, headphones/speakers, and a freemium music subscription, offering ample opportunities for bundling and co-branding."

"Time will tell exactly how we integrate our products and services," said MOG founder/CEO David Hyman. "The addition of MOG's music service to the Beats portfolio will provide a truly end-to-end music experience."

"For now, MOG will remain the same product today as it was yesterday and offer the same rich experience," said Beats president/COO Luke Wood. "What we do know is that we're committed to offering an integrated experience for the consumer — from the point of discovery to the point of playback."

MOG was founded in 2005. Though an on-demand music service like Spotify, MOG has long offered noteworthy streaming radio services (find RAIN's review of their radio offerings from 2009 here). It offers 16 million songs and reportedly has around 500,000 registered users.

MOG has actively partnered with device- and automakers, including BMW, Ford, Logitech, Samsung, LG, Barnes & Noble and others.

You can find more coverage from USA Today here, the L.A. Times here, Engadget here and Evolver.fm here.