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Imeem, the popular but financially troubled streaming media and music discovery service, launched its iPhone and Android application today. The new app (iTunes link) allows users to stream songs they have uploaded to Imeem's servers while on the go, something that only very few of imeem's competitors can offer right now. The app, which is available for free, also allows users to create custom radio stations and it features a small set of preset stations, including a list of the top 100 songs on the service.

For us, the iPhone has already replaced our radio while driving. Thanks to a steady stream of podcasts and the Last.fm and Pandora applications, annoying DJs and endless commercials have become a thing of the past. Now, another streaming music app, Slacker Radio, which was already available for the Blackberry, has arrived in the App Store (iTunes link), and we think it is a worthy competitor to the popular Last.fm and Pandora apps.

Tunerec is an interesting new music service that automatically records songs from about 300 Internet radio stations for you, tags them, and makes them available for streaming through an iTunes-like web interface. Tunerec, which is based in Sweden, also features some social networking functions, including the ability to follow other users and share playlists with your friends. As the music has to be 'recorded' first, it takes a while for your playlist to be populated and the early selections can be rather quirky, but a bit of patience will ultimately be rewarded.

According to PaidContent, Imeem, one of our favorite streaming music services, is starting to feel the pressure of the economic downturn and is planning to lay off a quarter of its workforce. According to this report, Imeem is also looking for a potential candidate to buy the company.

Imeem is one of Sequoia's portfolio companies, so it doesn't come as a surprise that it is looking to keep its budget under control, but we do think that Imeem is going to have a hard time finding a buyer in these tough economic times.

Fairtilizer isn't a record company - it's a new music company. What's the difference? A record company is about owning the rights to music and establishes an employer/employee relationship with the artists. A music company, on the other hand, is about having artists establish a relationship with a service. At Fairtilizer, they believe the services they provide will establish them as the "music company" of the future.

This week, Fairtilizer has launched the first part of their new distribution platform: an embeddable player which allows indie artists to share their music anywhere on the net from web sites to blogs to social networks.

This week's RWW Live podcast show (Monday 3.30pm PST) is on the topic of online music. We have 2-3 very special guests (so far we have representatives from Yahoo and Imeem, please email me if you're interested in coming on the show, we have 1 final place to confirm). We've been writing a lot about online music lately. Last week Marshall asked: What would the perfect streaming music look like?. We got some great comments to that. But we're also interested in what your current favorite streaming music service is.

The iPhone's memory might be too small to carry your complete music collection with you, but thanks to a growing number of streaming music apps, you don't have to rely on your local storage anymore to have an ample supply of new music to listen to.

And thanks to a new application from Simplify Media, you can now even access all that music from your desktop while on the road.

Online music service Last.fm today announced that it will start paying out royalties to unsigned and independent bands that upload their music to last.fm. Artists will earn royalties whenever their music is played on-demand, or on Last.fm's streaming radio service. Last.fm had first announced this in January, but it took until today for Last.fm to officially start up its Artist Royalty Program.

Gainesville, Florida-based Grooveshark, a music sharing startup that we first profiled in August today launched their latest product: Grooveshark Lite. Lite is a slick, flash-based streaming music service that takes Grooveshark's huge catalog of uploaded music and makes it available to stream, no registration required. Grooveshark Lite is fast, easy to use, and free.