Google is believed to be planning a new online music store that will enable users to purchase and store songs online and then access the songs on multiple associated devices.

“They’re coming into this market rather late in the game, where there are large, established players,” Ray Valdes, an analyst at Gartner Inc. tells Bloomberg in reference to Google’s music store aspirations. “You can say it’s a saturated market.”

Regardless, Google is coming well-equipped to the fight for digital music supremacy. Google has reportedly already reached an agreement with Sony Corp.’s music unit. Vivendi SA (VIV)’s Universal Music Group and EMI Group Ltd. are also believed to be on board.

Google is expected to take a page out of Apple’s book and make songs available for $0.99 to $1.29.

Google’s event begins today at 2 p.m. Pacific, 5 p.m. Eastern. It will be streamed live at youtube.com/android.

That’s up from $5.9 billion in 2010.

Despite the runaway growth in digital music consumption, Gartner predicts that online music revenue will reach $6.8 billion in 2012, and grow to $7.7 billion in 2015.

Needless to say, however, where there’s a winner, there’s also usually a loser. And in this case, the loser is physically-packaged music, like CDs.

Consumer spending on CDs and LPs is expected to slide from approximately $15 billion in 2010 to about $10 billion in 2015, Gartner estimates.

“As consumers opt for connected devices – media tablets, smartphones and connected media players – across world regions, their desire for access to and consumption of music and content is growing as well,” says Mike McGuire, research vice president at Gartner. “Music labels, artists, publishers and new distribution intermediaries are developing new business models to address consumers’ changing behavior.”

“The music industry was the first media sector to feel the full impact of two major forces – the Internet and technology-empowered consumers,” He adds. “It has staggered through the first decade of the 21st century, and entered the second bedraggled financially and facing a powerful set of intermediaries, which are creating borderless global ecosystems that defy the industry’s previous notions of control and monetization. The primary stakeholders in the music industry are facing wrenching changes and a somewhat uncertain future. However, the next four to five years portend solid growth.”

For more info from the report, click here.

Sources speaking in confidence to Reuters indicate that new features will be imbued on user home pages. The features “deeply integrate music services” from Facebook partners including Spotify, MOG, Rhapsody, Slacker and Rdio.

Present plans call for the music platform to be unveiled at Facebook’s developer conference scheduled to commence on September 22nd.

For now, executives for Facebook will not offer public comment on the rumors.

Though Facebook is the world’s most popular social networking services with more than 750 million users, its founder Mark Zuckerberg is keen to increase the amount of time users spend in the Facebook environment.

According to sources in the know, music will be all but “one aspect of the strategy to improve Facebook’s ‘stickiness.’”

“They are working on a platform for music where the goal is to create a connective tissue for fans,” a source close to Facebook tells Reuters.

HTC is purchasing a majority stake (51%) in Beats Electronics for $300 million.

The two fast-growing brands will focus on bringing high performance sound to HTC phones, a joint press release proclaims.

“The HTC and Beats by Dr. Dre partnership is an opportunity for two world-class companies to redefine the smart phone industry and define the future,” says Iovine. “For Beats by Dr. Dre, this represents a critical step in our continued mission to clean up the destruction of audio caused by the digital revolution; and reengineer how sound is delivered so that the consumer feels the music the way that the artist intended.”

HTC and Beats have been working together to create “superior mobile audio experiences for consumers,” which will result in a line of HTC devices integrated with Beats sound innovations, available this fall.

Some are saying the partnership could revolutionize mobile audio as we presently know it.

“Beats has found a unique way to harness popular culture in a manner that is unlike any other brand today,” adds Peter Chou, CEO of HTC Corporation. “It’s an exciting brand that has been built around providing something very special, and we believe our strategic partnership will provide customers with unbeatable sound on HTC phones. We obsess over every detail of a consumer’s mobile experience and audio is a critical part of that experience.”

On Wednesday, MTV released a new location-based concert finder app in partnership with SuperGlued called Live and Local. The app is free for iOS and Android users.

According to MTV, Live and Local is sponsored by Vitamin Water and enables people to find local concerts for the music its users are most passionate about. What’s more, the app lets them schedule, purchase and share those experiences with their social networks.

Other details of the MTV Live and Local app include:

• Find: Local shows from virtually every artist — Indie to Top 40.
• Recommend: This feature scrubs users’ iTunes playlists to create customized recommendations.
• Buy: Find lowest-priced tickets from a variety of vendors; users can purchase tickets through the app
• Calendar: See all local shows on a calendar and create your own to map out the events you’ll be attending,
• Maps: Get directions and venue info before you attend a show.
• Social: Pre-show, share in-app with your Facebook and Twitter networks and automatically see who else is attending.

Today marks the arrival of the long-awaited big day – Spotify, the mega-popular European-based online music service, will debut in the United States this morning at 8:00 AM EST.

Spotify, which boasts some ten million users, is currently available in the U.K., Finland, France, the Netherlands, Sweden, Norway and Spain.

“Spotify, the award-winning digital music service loved by millions of Europeans, will become available tomorrow morning in the United States by invitation and subscription,” Spotify announced just hours ago. “Spotify is a new way to listen to and manage your music, discover new tracks and share songs and playlists with friends – music whenever you want it, wherever you are.”

The first wave of availability, however, is limited to “invitation and subscription.”

And we’re not exactly sure what that means yet. But we’re bound to find out later today.

Nonetheless, Spotify is gearing up to challenge iTunes in the online music space. The company is already promising to arrive with a bang, saying it will deliver “any track, any time, anywhere” for free.

What isn’t clear at this time, however, is how Spotify may charge users for expanded use of the service in the US. Currently in Europe, users can get the service for free if they are willing to endure accompanying ads and a strict limit of ten hours per month. If and how this structure will change in the US remains anyone’s guess. But Spotify says it will provide greater details later today at the time of launch.

Spotify is currently available in the U.K., Finland, France, the Netherlands, Sweden, Norway and Spain.

Well, it now appears the big day is actually upon us. Spotify has formally announced its imminent arrival in the United States.

On Wednesday, Spotify made the announcement and began formally requesting interested potential users to sign up for notifications so that they may become the first US residents to try out the hugely popular European-based service.

Spotify’s premium subscription service runs about $16 per month and enables users to play an unlimited amount of uninterrupted music (that is, music that’s free of advertisements) on both mobile phones and computers.

The award-winning music service that’s taken Europe by storm will soon be landing on US shores. Millions of tracks ready to play instantly, on your computer and your phone.

What isn’t clear at this time, however, is how Spotify may charge users for expanded use of the service in the US. Currently in Europe, users can get the service for free if they are willing to endure accompanying ads and a strict limit of ten hours per month.

If and how this structure will change in the US remains anyone’s guess. But since Spotify is using the word “free” to hype the music service’s arrival, there will obviously be at least one “free” option that comes with the service’s long-awaited North American debut.

To sign up for an email notification of Spotify’s US arrival, click here.

Yesterday, Pandora priced its IPO at $16 per share, which would effectively value the company at $2.6 billion – higher than the company’s initial price range of $7 to $9 per share ($1.3 billion valuation).

Taking a page from LinkedIn’s IPO playbook, last week Pandora once again gave its price range a boost, this time up to $12 per share ($1.9 billion valuation).

But as of Tuesday, $16 was the magic price – a clear indication of the company’s optimism and penchant for investor hype.

Beginning this morning with the open of trade on The New York Stock Exchange, Pandora’s stock will trade under the symbol “P.” Pandora expects to raise upwards of $235 million in the offering.

A total of approximately 6.0 million shares are being offered by Pandora and a total of approximately 8.7 million shares are being offered by selling stockholders, the company said in a press release Tuesday.

Pandora says it has also granted the underwriters a 30-day option to purchase up to approximately an additional 2.2 million shares to cover over-allotments, if any. Pandora will not receive any proceeds from the sale of shares by the selling stockholders, the company revealed.

Spotify is currently available in the U.K., Finland, France, the Netherlands, Sweden, Norway and Spain.

Despite rumors of a US launch that have lingered for months, the reason for newfound hope in the prospective North American expansion of the service is a new distribution agreement with Universal Music Group – a deal Spotify is reportedly close to reaching if it hasn’t already.

The deal, which one of these people said was signed on Thursday, comes in addition to similar pacts with EMI Group Ltd. and Sony Corp.’s Sony Music Entertainment. The remaining major-label group, Warner Music Group Corp., was in advanced discussions on Friday with Spotify.

The Wall Street Journal reports that Spotify executives are of the mindset that an early July launch may still be possible in the US.

Two months ago, just as the company was believed to be engaging in its most aggressive talks to seal the deals necessary to bring Spotify to the US, “more stringent limits were places on the amount of free music listeners could hear before upgrading to the paid option.”

Spotify’s premium subscription service runs about $16 per month and enables users to play an unlimited amount of uninterrupted music (that is, music that’s free of advertisements) on both mobile phones and computers.

On Tuesday at the Google I/O conference in San Francisco, California, Google lifted the curtain on its new cloud-based music player presently dubbed Music Beta.

For now, the streaming product will remain free during its beta existence, but the service isn’t yet available to all. Google presently requires an “invite” to test out the service, similar to the way the company first introduced Gmail.

“The cloud player,” Matthew Lynley of Venture Beat reports, “is basically what everyone expected it to be — a way for Google users to upload music to a remote server and access it from other devices.”

As it’s understood, a PC or Mac-enabled application can upload music, making it possible for users to then stream content through the Internet to the mobile devices – smartphones, tablets, etc. – of their choice.

Sadly for Google, however, the Internet search giant is yet to reach an agreement with major music labels to beef up the new service’s music menu. Until further notice, users have no choice but to upload their own content.

Users of the beta service can upload a maximum of 20,000 songs via software for Mac or Windows.

Shortly after Google unveiled Music Beta, much attention and subsequent discussion reverted back to Apple, as the company remains rumored to be readying a new cloud-based version of iTunes that, at least after today, now appears essential for iTunes – assuming it wants to continue warding off challenges from competing upstart digital music services.