AM BRIEF: Spotify: 250K U.S Paid, Google MP3 Store, UMG Ups Lamberg, SoundHound, Official.fm, More

• Spotify now has 250,000 paying subscribers in the U.S. (Reuters) I admit happily to being one of them. 250K is only about 20% of what a combined Rhapsody and Napster have, but a great start for just a couple of months. But unfortunately, Spotify is still loosing a ton of money.
• Google is planning to launch an mp3 store within weeks. (NY Times) How revolutionary!
• Evan Lamberg has been named president of Universal Music Publishing Group North America.

• SoundHound, the sound search company announced the release of SoundHound version 4.1 with support for iOS 5. The update takes advantage of iCloud, offering automated wireless syncing of music recognition and search history.
• B2B music management platform Official.fm has added offices in NY and SF along with 3 new execs: Lucas Gonze, Jason Herskowitz and Chuck Fishman as Chief Technology Officer (CTO), Chief Product Officer (CPO) and Partnership Relations Director, respectively. (press release)
• Brian Lakamp has been named President of Clear Channel Digital, including iHeartRadio.
• The Echo Nest has applied its song mapping technology to the Free Music Archive, a curated selection of 40,000 songs available under Creative Commons and other licenses.
• UMG's Digster.fm curated playlist platform has broadened beyond Universal labels and added payback via Rdio in addition to Spotify.