Rdio

After less than two years, Blackberry is throwing in the towel on its BBM Music streaming service, and is steering customers to Rdio.

The service will end June 2nd. BBM Music was a $4.99/month on-demand streaming service that allowed customers to share up to 50 songs with other BBM users. It launched in August 2011.

Read more from The Verge here.

On-demand streaming service Rdio today began offering Canadians six months free but limited access to its service, without ads. This is for full use of the service, including on-demand listening, playlist creating, social media sharing, etc. 

Free streaming is available through the Web or Rdio's desktop apps for Mac and Windows. A meter at the top of user profile pages lets people know how much free music they have remaining each month.

Rdio's subscription plans range from $4.99/month to the $22.99/month for three people "family" plan.

Leading music subscription services are ramping up their global expansions.

GigaOm reports Rhapsody will launch in 16 additional European countries in the first half of this year (but didn't mention which). This is the first "proper international launch" for Rhapsody, which is in the UK and Germany by way of acquiring Napster, (the brand under which it operates in those nations).

Meanwhile, Rhapsody competitors Spotify and Rdio are both rumored to be entering the Japanese market in the coming months. Sony's Music Unlimited is currently Japanese music subscribers' only option. Spotify is in 20 countries worldwide, Rdio in 17.

Read more on the Rhapsody news in GigaOm here; more on Spotify and Rdio in Japan Daily Press here.

Rdio, like several subscription on-demand music companies (Spotify, MOG), has long offered "artist radio stations" -- that is, "radio" streams of one or more user-selected artists. They've now announced a partnership with The Echo Nest to use the latter's "music intelligence" services to vastly improve the radio offering.

In April, GigaOM reported that Rdio was looking to "become more like Pandora," and was developing a custom online radio feature (our coverage here) The web-based version of Rdio will offer the Echo Nest-powered streaming radio beginning this week. Rdio also promises more offerings based on the new partnership with The Echo Nest.

Rdio was created by Skype co-founders Niklas Zennström and Janus Friis.

Billboard is now factoring streaming data and digital download sales into its rankings for major music charts. Billboard announced yesterday that rankings for five of its top current music charts will take into account plays on streaming services like Slacker, Spotify, Rhapsody, Muve, Rdio, and Xbox Music.

The 50-song charts will still include radio airplay data from Nielsen BDS. This is the same formula Billboard uses to create its "all-genre" Hot 100 songs ranking. The Billboard charts Hot Rock Songs, Hot Country Songs, Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs, Hot Latin Songs, and Rap Songs will now factor plays on select streaming services, as well as digital download sales tracked by Nielsen SoundScan.

Additionally, as Billboard explains, the new methodology "will reward crossover titles receiving airplay on a multitude of formats. With digital download sales and streaming data measuring popularity on the most inclusive scale possible, it is only just the radio portion of Billboard chart calculations that includes airplay from the entire spectrum of monitored formats."

"The way people consume music continues to evolve and as a result so do our genre charts, which now track the many new ways fans experience, listen to and buy music," says Silvio Pietroluongo, Billboard Director of Charts. "We're proud to be offering updated genre charts that better reflect the current music landscape..."

Leading Internet radio outlet Pandora wasn't specifically mentioned, but the press release does read "among others" when listing participating streamers.

Read more in Billboard here.

Pandora has released its self-reported listening for September. Listeners spent 1.15 billion hours with the service (up 67% from last September, but slightly off from August's 1.16 billion (see August's numbers here)). Pandora says they now have 58.3 million "active" listeners (up 49% from September 2011; that number was 56.2 million in August 2012). Finally, Pandora reports its share of "total U.S. radio listening" for September was 6.53% (it was 6.30% in August, and 4.03% in September 2011).

Meanwhile, a federal court has tossed a lawsuit against Pandora, "for alleged privacy missteps following Facebook integration," CNet reports here.

The Next Web Insider reports a rumor that Microsoft is negotiating the acquisition of on-demand music streaming and subscription service Rdio. Read more here. We reported yesterday (here) that Microsoft is launching its own music service, Xbox Music, this month.

Streaming music service Rhapsody is getting space for its app with a special "visibly rich" interface on new LG, Panasonic, and Samsung "smart" TVs. Read more in Engadget here.