Friday’s Music Brief: SpiralFrog, SXSW, Ticketmaster Losses, Spotify, Prince & More

HYPEBOT FEATURES:

• 
  SpiralFrog Shuts Down
• A Techdirt vs. Choruss Smackdown?
• SXSW Surprise: Jane's Addiction @ C3 Bash
• Gamecues Offers Indies Path To Gaming $'s
• Buzznet Grabs $12.5M And A New Name
• Daily DIY: To Tour Or Not To Tour?

MORE MUSIC INDUSTRY NEWS:

• Indie labels talk survival at South by Southwest (LA Times)
• Ticketmaster posted a $1 billion loss in Q4. (Billboard) Please let us merge with Live Nation….pretty plaese…
•  A series of job ads on the Spotify website hint as plans to launch apps for iPhone, Android and Nokia’s Series 60 platform. (MusicAlly)
• Prince officially announces new fan subscription site and offers some deals of why its worth $77. (press release)
• You Tube Previews in Gmail: Links to YouTube videos get emailed around all the time. Now, if you use Gmail and turn on YouTube previews from the Gmail Labs tab under Settings,
  you won't even have to leave your inbox to watch videos –
  instead, they'll show up right inside your messages.
• NYC's Metropolitan Talent is cutting staff. 
• Thomson, one of the companies which developed the MP3 format has developed a backward-compatible, lossless MP3HD
  format. (PC)
• iStockphoto added 30,000 royalty-free tracks to become a 1 stop shop for user-generated stock images, videos and sounds.