ReadWriteWeb

We're living in an exciting era for media. The user experience of consuming (and producing) media is changing rapidly, as new devices take hold of the consumer market. Smartphones, tablets, Internet TVs, eReaders, and more. It isn't just new devices either. The content we're consuming is beginning to change too. For example, it's only natural that the type of television program you consume on a tablet device can - and increasingly will - be different to traditional television.

Today we're starting a new series on ReadWriteWeb that will explore how the user experience (UX) of media is evolving. Over the coming weeks we'll look at television, movies, music, books, blogs, news, art - anything that is 'content' on the Web. In today's post, we're going to explore the new UX of music on smartphones.

Update: Amazon has now launched the service described below, under the name Amazon Cloud Drive.

Amazon is preparing a music locker service, a website where you'll be able to listen to music you've uploaded from your local collection (or otherwise proven you've bought) now streaming from any computer with a web browser. That according to a number of media reports, most recently by Ethan Smith at the Wall St. Journal, who reports that the service may be announced as early as tomorrow.

RIM, maker of BlackBerry smartphones and the forthcoming PlayBook tablet, has today announced a partnership with 7digital, a digital media and music store. The new store will offer over 13 million MP3 tracks from Warner Music Group, Universal, EMI and Sony and it will come pre-installed on the PlayBook as an application.

7digital, a London-based digital media delivery company, offers music, videos and audiobooks to international customers on its online download store at 7digital.com. On the PlayBook, it will offer its music priced in a user's local currency. Initially, 7digital's music store will only be available to users in the U.S. and Canada, but will roll out to other international users over the course of 2011.

(Note: Update below & new screenshot)

Users over on the XDA-Developers forum have managed to get Google Music sync working on their rooted Android phones, even though the service has not officially launched. This was accomplished by removing the stock music app that came with their Android phone and installing a different version instead - the one found in Honeycomb (Android 3.0), the tablet-optimized implementation of the Android mobile operating system.

After installation, the sync process began and, according to the first user to notice this phenomenon, the phone was now syncing music, too. His collection of music synced overnight, he said. By morning, an option to "Stream Music" became available from within the music player application.

Microsoft is sponsoring Dev Unplugged, a contest for developers working on games and music applications in HTML5. "We believe that HTML5 and related technologies, in conjunction with faster and faster browsers, finally give developers the tools they need to create experiences that are as vivid, interactive and compelling as anything you have seen in native applications," writes Microsoft's Carter Rabasa. Several prizes are being offered, worth $40,000 in sum.

Hellboy creator Mike Mignola and the bands AWOLNATION and Ra Ra Riot are providing developers with starter content to use in entries.

Music aficionados know: there's a trade-off that comes with the move to digital music. Sure, you can house your entire record collection on your computer. You can fit thousands of songs on your mobile phone. But if you're downloading your mp3s from an online store like iTunes, you're often getting a file with poorer sound quality.

But a report from CNN suggests that Apple is working to improve the quality of its music downloads.

Sony joins a number of music streaming services today with its launch of "Music Unlimited powered by Qriocity." The service has been available in parts of Europe since last year, and arrives in the U.S., Australia, and New Zealand today.

Membership will start at $3.99 a month, with a $9.99 per month subscription that will give you on-demand access to the Music Unlimited catalog and with the ability to suggest music you might like based on the songs you already own or listen to. The service boasts more than 6 million songs, giving Sony Music Entertainment and its partners in the endeavor - Universal Music Group, EMI Music and Warner Music Group Corp - the ability to sell directly to customers.

Online music recommendation service Pandora has had quite the ride over the last several years. In 2006, ReadWriteWeb named it a runner-up in the yearly Best Little Company round-up and we had high hopes for the company. Four months later, we were writing about how Pandora founder Tim Westergren was appealing for help to "save Internet radio" from licensing fees. A year after that, the headline read "Pandora On the Verge of Closing Shop".

Oh, how things can change. Nowadays, Pandora is everywhere, from computers to mobile phones to integrated car stereo systems. Today, the company has taken it one step further and filed for a $100 million IPO.

The personalized music streaming company Last.fm has announced that its radio service will become an ad-free, subscriber-only feature on iPhones and Androids, starting February 15.

Last.fm Radio will remain free via its website and desktop app as well as for U.S. and U.K. users of Xbox Live and Windows Mobile 7 phones.

Last.fm Radio offers a personalized station, playing full song tracks based on users' preferences. Currently, that streaming service is free in the U.S. and U.K. via an ad-supported app.

As we noted last week when the music industry released an annual report detailing its continued decline in revenue, "piracy" seems to be the go-to scapegoat, the reason that the music industry is struggling. And one of the sites that the industry often points to (and in its recent report, lauded governments for trying to quash) as a major culprit of piracy is The Pirate Bay.

So rumors that The Pirate Bay is launching a music project may strike fear - or at least disconcertment - in the hearts of industry execs. It's apt, perhaps, that a new project - fear.themusicbay.org - is supposedly in the works.