Microsoft has announced that it is to integrate its MSN Music portal with Zune Marketplace when it officially launches in the UK. According to the computing giant, MSN Music will start linking out to Zune.net with its editorial content, while Zune will replace the current download store on MSN Music. Because of the move, customers of the MSN Music download store will be invited to use Zune Marketplace - a UK version was announced last week - which offers millions of DRM-free music tracks. Steven Wilson-Beales from MSN Music, said about the integration: "People will now be able to consume a range of music news, videos, spotlights on new music and artist information and have at their fingertips, the ability to purchase and listen to the music they want, wherever they want. The integration between MSN and Zune Pass will allow subscribers to log in from any supported web browser for unlimited access to a catalogue of 7 million songs in the Zune Marketplace."

Twitter has overtaken MySpace in US web rankings, beating the social network by 1 million unique users in August. New figures have been released by ComScore, which show that Twitter has entered the top 50 for the first time, with the micro-blogging site gaining 76 per cent of traffic, while MySpace dropped 17 per cent. This is nothing compared to the number one social-network, Facebook, which currently hits 598 million monthly uniques.

TechRadar 

Mobile ad network InMobi says Android and Symbian are the platforms mobile content providers and advertisers should be targeting in emerging markets. Speaking at Monetising Mobile today the company's VP of global research and marketing James Lamberti said that current OS market shares on its network indicate Android is set to dominate in Asia, Middle East, Africa and Europe. He added that Symbian will also be a key platform in emerging territories. All of which means the importance of iPhone for mobile ad revenue is going to be much less pronounced outside of the US and Europe.

Mobile Entertainment 

A former Nokia employee has told the New York Times that the company was working on an internet-ready touchscreen phone prototype way back in 2004, but decided to abandon the project due to prohibitive production costs. The article seeks to paint a picture that Nokia passed up opportunities to innovate in the mid-noughties, only to see others pick up the various dropped balls, run with them and put the Finnish company in the somewhat uncomfortable position it finds itself in today. In addition to the touchscreen concept, another ex-employee says Nokia also rejected designs for an online app store and a 3D user interface.

Mobile Entertainment 

Online retail giant Amazon has launched Kindle for the web in beta, giving punters a chance to read e-books in their web browsers. Amazon users have always had access to e-book content online but the ubiquity of Kindle means the feature is being transformed. Kindle for the web is getting a full feature set with social networking front-loaded to please the great unwashed. Amazon is also reaching out to the vocal majority of bloggerati, encouraging them to punt out Kindle book samples. Bloggers need to be members of the Amazon Associates Program and will earn enticements like referral fees from Amazon. Naturally samples are just that, samples, so Kindle for the web is geared up to lure punters to spend top dollar on its e-book service.

The Inquirer 

Novell is releasing Version 1.1 of its SUSE Appliance toolkit. “It’s delivering the broadest cloud support of any imaging solution,” enthused Michael Applebaum, director of Linux and appliances marketing for Novell. “It has the most enterprise use cases. It’s the fastest way to bring applications to the cloud today.” The new version has a number of important new features, he added. “We’re adding support for Amazon EC2. You’ll be able to run your SUSE application in EC2. We’re adding support for building those applications within SUSE Studio, the solution that’s part of the SUSE Appliance toolkit. We’re also adding KVM and ODS support.”

ZDNet 

An app that purports to monitor how much radiation your smartphone is producing at any given time, and then warns you when it is excessive has been released to the Android Marketplace. Tawkon claims that its patent pending algorithms collect and analyse RF data in real time to determine the radiation levels produced by your phone. As you would expect, in an area of poor reception, a phone has to work harder to obtain a signal, and therefore gives off more radiation, so the phone’s location in relation to the nearest base station is critical. In addition, the design of the aerial on the phone will make a difference, as will how the person is holding their phone – as Apple knows only too well. The app also takes into account the antenna’s distance from the body using the proximity sensor.

Trusted Reviews 

The newly combined Orange and T-Mobile has announced its first quarterly results, and customers are up, or down, depending on how you count them, but that's only one of the company's contradictions. Revenue is down 4.8 per cent to £1.72bn, but that's the government's fault, and the drop in subscribers only exists if you insist on comparing to earlier this year rather than 12 months ago. EBITDA (the made-up number that passes for profits these days) is down 18.4 per cent. The synergies are on track to save the combined company a fortune, though Everything Everywhere has now announced that it will be opening more shops and building more base stations - not the removal of duplication we were expecting.

The Register 

 

Speaking at The Royal Television Society International Conference in London, Crozier said: “At some point in the next year to 18 months, I am keen to put a payment mechanism in place [on ITV.com] to test what content people will pay for…I think people don’t know the answer to this [question] and we are going to have to learn as we go.” He used Coronation Street as an example, saying that ITV may start charging viewers for access to back catalogue episodes and fun gimmicks, such as alternative endings to different storylines. He declined to expand upon exactly which shows and what types of experiences ITV will start charging for, but said that the company would definitely install a “micropayments system” on ITV.com in order to “test and learn what type of experiences viewers are willing to pay for”, as well as offer a richer and deeper experience across ITV.com.

The Telegraph 

Two new Android-based handsets from Vodafone have been announced this week - the Vodafone 945 and 553. If you think that the 945 name sounds familiar, it is because it is the successor to the Vodafone 845, which also brought Android 2.1 to those on a budget. The 945 has a 3.2in, 480 x 272 capacitive touchscreen (the 845 could only muster up a resistive screen) and it also comes equipped with a 5MP camera, GPS, Wi-Fi and that all-important FM radio. You will also get access to Android Market and Vodafone Music and there's 300MB memory on board, which can be expanded by the 32GB memory card slot.