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Listen.com plans to launch its Rhapsody service officially "later this year," which is, coincidentally, when we plan to go through the mountain of crap on our desks.

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More Tech News Than You've Ever Scrolled Through While Fending Off Drowsiness

YOU'VE GOT GREETS... YOU'VE GOT BEAT...
OK, NEEDS WORK
Online musical greeting-card company BeatGreets, a division of American Greetings, will provide its products to America Online, it was announced today. AOL will add the catalog of BeatGreets online greetings—many of which feature major-label artists, thanks to deals cut with labels and label groups—to its AOL Music channel. "Music and e-mail are two of the most popular activities for AOL members," said AOL Sr. VP and head of AOL Music Kevin Conroy. "Our new relationship with BeatGreets brings the two together in a truly unique was that benefits AOL members, Web music fans and our music partners." Said Beatgreets President Nancy Levin, "There is just no question that our exclusive partner should be the team at AOL Music, with the expertise they've developed reaching an audience of more than 30 million members and millions of online music fans—and besides, the mind-control technique they're perfecting by sending coded messages directly to users' brains by varying their monitor voltage is really neat."

"CONTENT" NO LONGER A DIRTY WORD?
Boasting more than 12.9 hours streamed to 210 million customers per month, Yahoo! Broadcast (http://broadcast.yahoo.com) is seriously ramping up its programming. Through deals struck with Carsey Werner Productions, FranklinCovey, Sting and allFOOD.com, Yahoo! Broadcast will feature full-length TV episodes (and clips) from shows such as "Townies" as well as classic commercials, celebrity interviews, comedy, movie clips and other programming; video of a post-9/11 conference with Dr. Stephen R. Covey, author of "The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People"; a Sting concert taped in Tuscany; and recipe and cooking technique videos featuring well-known chefs. As of this writing, the author of "The Seven Habits of Highly High People" (currently napping in the HITS mailroom) had not been approached by Yahoo for any reason. He does, however, periodically wake up and scream "Yahoo!" apropos of nothing.

THE eUNIVERSE IS EXPANDING
In a deal valued at up to 17 million, 550 Digital Media Ventures, a subsidiary of Sony Broadband Entertainment, has closed a financing deal with eUniverse, nominally "the Internet's leading interactive entertainment network." Loosely translated, that means "we can still afford a publicist." But seriously, 550 DMV has committed to a $5 million equity investment in eUniverse, which also produces e-mail newsletters featuring news and other entertainment-related information, and will sell eUniverse its stake in InfoBeat, nominally "the leading personalized news and entertainment e-mail service." Loosely translated, that means some really exciting spam. But seriously, eUniverse will also have the option of converting a $2.1 million loan from 550DMV to equity, provided the company meets certain conditions. Seriously.

LIVIN' LA LIQUID LOCA
In perhaps the most important development in the "secure bilingual downloads" sphere so far this week, Liquid Audio will provide secure digital downloads for bilingual Latin Music portal Latinoise.com. In a related story, one HITS staffer thought he was bilingual last night, but now says he was just "experimenting."

KOOKY RINGTONES, PART 8,473,826
Sonera zed U.S., Inc.
(yes, we said "Sonera zed"), a subsidiary of Finnish telecom group Sonera, has entered into a licensing agreement with ASCAP allowing the company to publicly perform on cell phones far and wide any of more than 7 million works repped by the performing rights org. This will allow Sonera zed to make sure its "collection of high-quality and entertaining ringtones" are "in full compliance," according to a statement. While any such licensing deal is admirable, the jury is still out as to whether excessive ringing to the tune of "Sunshine of Your Love" has actually increased incidents of so-called "cell phone rage." Hey, isn't there a war or something going on right now?

GETMUSIC GETS JACKO
GetMusic is offering a stream of its "historic" audio chat with Michael Jackson. The hour-long online discussion, moderated by veteran music scribe Anthony DeCurtis, allowed the King of Pop's Web-savvy fans to ask such probing questions as "What's your favorite song on the album?" and "What's it like being so awesome?" Jackson also weighs in on Halloween, Alien Ant Farm's hit cover of his song "Smooth Criminal," and sundry other topics—check it out by clicking here.

DOWNLOAD COME AND ME WANT GO HOME
Hope you're sitting down for this one. BMG's Buddha Records has cut a deal with Digital World Services to offer secure—that is, "DRM-protected," according to a release—downloads on its Black Anthology site. Which means fans can get tracks from Harry Belafonte's The Long Road to Freedom black-music anthology for free. Except that your "freedom" to do things with the music is limited. Meanwhile, the scourge of Belafonte-related online piracy continues unabated elsewhere.

STOP, LOG ON AND LISTEN
Listen.com
is offering Webnoize conference attendees a sneak peek at its Rhapsody digital music service, which the netco says will give subscribers unlimited streaming, customized libraries and playlists and other goodies. Listen plans to launch the service officially "later this year," which is, coincidentally, when we plan to go through the mountain of crap on our desks. The company recently announced it had made licensing pacts with 19 record labels, including KOCH Entertainment, Alternative Tentacles, Concord, Matador, Razor and Tie Entertainment and 75Ark, for the service. No word yet if future deals will include buying Gershwin's "Rhapsody in Blue" back from American Airlines.

NEAR TRUTHS: SPRING BLOOMS
Here come the big guns. (3/28a)
THE COUNT: COLDPLAY IS HOT, COUNTRY'S COOKIN' IN THE U.K.
The latest tidbits from the bustling live sector (3/28a)
CITY OF HOPE TAPS MARCIANO FOR TOP HONOR
This year's philanthropic model (3/28a)
TRUST IN THE TOP 20
Hip-hop is no longer hibernating. (3/28a)
UMG BROADENS SPOTIFY OFFERINGS
Sir Lucian and Daniel are in harmony. (3/28a)
THE NEW UMG
Gosh, we hope there are more press releases.
TIKTOK BANNED!
Unless the Senate manages to make this whole thing go away, that is.
THE NEW HUGE COUNTRY ACT
No, not that one.
TRUMP'S CAMPAIGN PLAYLIST
Now 100% unlicensed!
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