Swedish music streaming service, Spotify, and T-Mobile’s parent company, Deutsche Telekom, partnered up to bring music to German consumers.  Deutsche Telekom is the first German telecommunications company to bundle a Spotify Premium subscription with its tariffs and as an add-on option.  Starting this October, Deutsche Telekom customers will be able to listen to more than 18 million music titles via their mobile phone, tablet and PC either online or offline and the best part about this is that using Spotify streaming will not affect your data limit.

“Music streaming is the business model of the future, and we are proud to be the first German telecommunications provider to offer our customers the pleasure of unlimited music as part of our tariffs. Spotify is an outstanding partner for this endeavor,” says Niek Jan van Damme, Management Board Member of Deutsche Telekom for Germany.

“Music streaming is much more than just an entirely new way to enjoy music. Our customers have access to the complete world of music without any need for digital storage space – and sharing music with others has never been easier.”

Aside from that, Spotify is increasing their presence as they’ve now started to offer physical gift cards in Target retail stores in the US.  So if you’re on a budget or you want to monitor your Spotify usage but don’t want to max out your credit card, you can just settle for the gift cards.  The gift cards are available in Target store across the US and available in the following denominations:  $10, $30 and $60.

Speaking of music cloud services, it’s time for another roundup on what other music streaming services have been up to, and how they’re faring against the competition.

Pandora

Pandora reported a second quarter loss of $5.4 million, though that may seem negative, the company broke even as on an adjusted basis, and their revenue jumped 51 percent to $101.3 million.  After the announcement, their shares rose by 20 percent to $12.07 per share.  The company is also pushing to improve their mobile ad performance, and this is working in their favor as more investors are becoming interested.

“[The quarter] showed evidence that ad dollars are following increased users,” So Young Lee, of SunTrust Robinson Humphrey, said in a research note. “The sales effort to penetrate the local radio ad market is working, and importantly, the company announced that it will be integrated with ad-buying networks by year-end.”

SoundCloud

Earlier this month, SoundCloud announced a new partnership with payments service provider, Adyen.  Adyen’s single-click payment solution will now be available to SoundCloud consumers.  The partnership with Adyen is in line with their plans for global dominance as the service provides service for payment processing in various currencies.

“SoundCloud is growing rapidly so we were looking for a multi-currency payment solution with an integrated checkout process and fraud management system that could scale easily across the globe,” said Moritz Koenigsbuescher, SoundCloud Product Manager of Payments. “Adyen provided SoundCloud with the best cultural fit, in terms of the technology, professionalism and mutual understanding of our needs.”

Grooveshark

About a year ago, Google removed music streaming app, Grooveshark, from the Android Market (now known as Google Play) after EMI, Universal Music Group and Warner Music Group accused the service of operating illegally.  But in July of this year, New York judge Barbara R. Kapnick, J.S.C, rejected UMG’s argument, that the DMCA does not apply to pre-1972 songs, in their case against Escape Media, Grooveshark’s parent group.  So Grooveshark had a minor win though the case isn’t over.  Then, earlier this week, Google reinstated Grooveshark in Google Play only to be pulled once again for no reason.  Apparently, the music groups are still pissed at Grooveshark or Google is just messing with Grooveshark so people will go for their own Music service.