Silicon.com was launched in 1998 by Rob Lewis, the serial entrepreneur who went on to found Business & Technology magazine, Omnifone and streaming site Rara.com, and the site was a must-read through much of the noughties.

Lewis sold Silicon.com to CBS Interactive, the owner of digital assets Last.fm, CNET, GameSpot and ZDNet, in 2002.

CBS Interactive took the decision to fold Silicon.com into the new TechRepublic UK, which competes against The Register and Computerworld, to keep the “best bits”.

The launch of the new TechRepublic UK site is scheduled for 1 February with Silicon.com editor Steve Ranger set to take the helm.

The US version of TechRepublic attracts 400,000 unique users per month in the UK.

CBS has also promoted Geoff Inns to the head of its UK interactive division. Inns has worked at CBS Interactive since 2002, prior to that he worked at German startup Questico and was head of business development for guardian.co.uk.

Current head of CBS Interactive UK, Jill Orr, has been promoted to an new role focusing on the international digital business.

This article originally appeared in MediaGuardian.

Polar also today released some numbers that attests to the growth of the apps economy — and to its own business. It says that it currently works with some 380 media brands in 12 countries. It has served 1.6 billion page views for some 11 million users to-date across the many apps that it has produced.

The $6 million round was led by Georgian Partners and takes the total invested in the company to $9 million, with the previous $3 million coming from private investors.

Georgian, which based in Toronto like Polar, has a portfolio that includes another app developer, Kony Solutions, as well as a number of other platform-based B2B digital media startups. (Two others include Shopify and Terapeak, which are used by retail e-commerce companies.)

Meanwhile, the new product line, branded MediaEverywhere, effectively does what it says on the label: it is HTML-5 based and is aimed at letting publishers make apps that can get used on different platforms and devices — not just mobiles and tablets but also desktop computers, and not just native apps but web browsers, too.

Working across different platforms is a trend we’ve seem among other app developers — but given the client line-up that Polar already has, this is a significant sign of how that kind of strategic view is taking shape among publishers investing in apps. Research from GfK last year showed that some 11 percent of magazine views are now digital-only — a number that is on the rise, with publishers all making sure that they will be along for the ride.

It’s worth pointing out that Polar already offered a degree of cross-platform development before today: its SmartTM product lets content be formatted for iPhone, iPad, Android, BlackBerry, PlayBook, Windows Phone and Nokia’s Symbian platform; however now web apps are being added into the mix.

Kunal Gupta, the CEO of Polar, tells paidContent that is has some publishers already on the platform but is not announcing any client names just yet.

Some publishers — notably the FT — are buying up/bringing in-house their third-party developers in order to have a better grip on how they develop their apps, and to make sure that they continue to have an edge on their competitors. That presents an interesting challenge for a third-party company like Polar: will it, too, eventually get swallowed up by one of its customers, or will it find it hard in the longer term to attract business from the big-name publishers who will continue to invest in having that expertise in-house?

Gupta tells paidContent that the company is more than happy to stay independent for now.

As CEO of CNET Networks, Ashe helped engineer the sale of the tech media company to CBS with impeccable timing — selling in mid-2008 for $1.8 billion ahead of the market shift. He spent six years at CNET, including the last two as CEO while the public company was under tremendous pressure. He managed the integration into CBS Interactive, sticking through his original commitment to CBS CEO Leslie Moonves into what he called “an operating job.”

This new job promises a mix as Walmart pushes ahead with what CEO Mike Duke calls “a long-term vision to win.” Walmart has yet to achieve the kind of success with digital content that some think it should have. His background at CNET and CBS could be a major plus.

Working for Walmart (the job is effective immediately) marks the first time Ashe has been on the retail side but his last two jobs included international aspects, something Walmart played up in the late Monday announcement.

He joined the board of LivingSocial during his break, so is familiar with the volatile daily deal space. LivingSocial’s investors include e-tailer Amazon (NSDQ: AMZN), among Walmart’s largest online competitors.

Positioning it as the “next big step” for music, Spotify is opening up its platform to include apps from other companies, which will provide music reviews and news from the likes of Pitchfork and Rolling Stone, as well as internet radio from Last.fm.

Rolling Stone founder and publisher Jann Wenner went onstage next to herald the pop culture magazine’s integration into Spotify. Essentially, Rolling Stone’s app within Spotify will help provide recommendations as well as playlists.

(Rolling Stone and Pitchfork already have set up playlists, but it’s nothing more than what users can currently do themselves. Still, it was not immediately clear how this official Rolling Stone app would be more robust than what it currently offers.)

Earlier, Ek noted all the requests for features that Spotify gets, such as “DJ mode” for playing songs, lyrics to what’s being listened to, and accessing concert tickets and related info. Those features will now be supplied by app partners Last.fm, Tunewiki and Songkick, respectively.

One of the most polarizing things about Spotify’s integration with Facebook is the automatic sharing of what’s being listened to at a given moment. Users will now be able to segment out their “real” friends, whose musical tastes correspond more closely.

All the apps will be available to users of the basic, free Spotify version as well the paid subscribers.

So what’s the value to app developers and partners who appear on Spotify? Right now, it’s the promotional aspect of being able to reach Spotify’s 10 million active users.

“These are early days and we’re still trying to figure this out,” Ek said.

“Right now, there is no monetization model for the apps on Spotify’s platform [in terms of revenue sharing]. However, they can attract users, who want to buy concert tickets, as in the case of Songkick.”

Original post: After 20 minutes of serving truffled quail eggs, mini bagels with smoked salmon and other assorted amuse bouches, Ek took the stage at Spotify’s much-hyped New York press conference with a history of the CD in 1981. “Do you know what artist had the first CD? It was Abba, which like me, is from Sweden.”

He then went through Napster and iTunes. “Only 500 million are listening online. You need a better product than piracy. Fast and easy to share. it’s all about access. That’s why the CD is so ubiquitous: it works everywhere. Secondly, we want to ensure that artists get paid and continue to make great music.”

“We’re adding 20,000 new tracks a day and currently have 15 million songs — literally a lifetime worth of music,” Ek said. “We’ve become the second biggest revenue source for European record labels and have paid $150 million so far. Sweden was the land of music piracy. 33 percent of the Swedish population listens to Spotify — since that time, piracy has declined 25 percent.”

Since launching in the U.S. this fall, the company has 10 million active users, with 2.5 million paying subscribers. There have been 7 million users added since September, when it began linking up with Facebook as an app on the social network.

Aspiro — the Swedish music streaming service that is not Spotify — today announced that it had signed a deal with a “new partner” in one of the Benelux countries. Aspiro doesn’t say who the customer is but from its past track record for customers it may be an ISP or a mobile operator. Under the terms of the agreement the partner will sell Aspiro’s streaming service, called WiMP, under a new brand name. Aspiro says that agreement will give it a revenue bump to the tune of 8 million-30 million Swedish Kronor ($1.2 million-$4.6 million) over the next four years.

It says the new service is expected to launch in the next three to six months.

The white-label route is one that we may start to see increasingly from Aspiro as it looks to expand its customer base and subscriber footprint. Currently, it has only one other agreement of the kind, in Portugal. “Although launching WiMP-branded directly to consumers is our main strategy, we are also flexible towards partners who want to use their own branding. This agreement could generate a substantial growth for us,” the CEO of Aspiro, Gunnar Sellæg, said in the company’s statement.

At the end of October, Aspiro announced that it was selling a 6.5 percent stake in the company to Norwegian music and entertainment retailer Platekompaniet for SEK 16 million ($2.5 million).

As of June, WiMP had some 300,000 paying users in Norway, Sweden, Denmark and Portugal, in addition to another 700,000 via an agreement with Norway’s Canal Digital, whose subscribers can opt for WiMP to be bundled into their pay-TV subscription packages.

The route of offering music services via a local ISP is one that is being tested by Virgin Media with its Spotify deal in the UK. Other partnerships of this kind have seen a lot of success: TDC in Denmark has been offering a music streaming and downloading service, TDC Play, since 2008 in partnership with the company 24/7, and in June it said it had seen 340 million downloads on the service (but no details about actual subscribers).

Aspiro is due to present its interim report for Q3 on November 10, when it might give out more up-to-date details on subscriber numbers and the new customer.

Meanwhile, the music download company 7digital has launched an app optimized for Android tablets — with perhaps the most unique feature being an enhanced graphic interface for browsing new and downloaded music.

The move is part of 7digital’s wider strategy to offer its service via more of its own-branded apps, which it is doing on top of the many deals it has in place to power music download services for a range of companies that include handset makers like Samsung and online music providers like Last.fm.

7digital in September noted 500,000 installs of its Android handset app and 600,000 downloads of its BlackBerry app. It has not said, however, how many music downloads have been made via those apps.

Lanzone arrived at CBS Interactive in March, when the network acquired his startup Clicker, which defined itself as a “TV Guide” for online video.

Clicker is at its heart a search engine, and with most people satisfied with what Google offers, why did Lanzone see a need for such a site?

“TV was moving online, and there was tremendous growth in the number of original online videos being created and distributed,” Lanzone said. “But unlike TV, online video wasn’t about when they were on, but where. My sense was that the remote control of the future was a search engine, and it needed to be a highly structured one around video choices.”

Lanzone ended up selling it to CBS 14 months after creating it. In terms of moving himself and Clicker to CBS, he said, “I’m a product guy and I love the opportunity to run websites.”

CBS already had its own site for discovering videos, TV.com. Lanzone talked about greater integration between Clicker and TV.com. “TV.com, when it was created in 2008, historically was the leading community site to talk about TV information,” Lanzone said. “Then it became a place to watch video, but it wasn’t clearly defined. That’s changing.”

While TV.com brings outside shows and clips under the CBS Audience Network umbrella, CBS.com is the main hub for the broadcaster’s programming. And Lanzone said that the network still doesn’t see a need to see that mimic anywhere else. “We do not believe in competing against ourselves,” he said. “But we’re not closed off either. Not only do we post videos on CBS.com, it’s the modern equivalent of Channel 2 on the web. We do a lot of syndication through the CBS Audience Network. But we’re not going to be acquiring other people’s shows.”

In terms of Hulu, online video viewers in Tokyo can watch older CBS shows thanks to a deal that was struck two months ago. Lanzone gave no indication that a similar deal for the U.S. was in the works. “Our strategy is to own, operate and monetize ourselves,” he said, “and I think (CBS Corp. CEO) Les Moonves has been very smart about that.”

In addition to Sears, whose blog post this summer was merely a provocative way of saying that the SSP model was evolving into a fuller ad exchange operations service, Rubicon has hired CBS (NYSE: CBS) Interactive’s Jeremy Fain as , VP, Client Services, and Grant Sterling, formerly platform manager at NBC (NSDQ: CMCSA) Universal, as account director. All three will be based in Santa Monica company’s New York offices.

The need for executives who can reach out to publishers and understand their concerns about the RTB — many premium publishers half-jokingly refer to it as “race to the bottom” — is increasingly important to companies in the SSP space. Earlier this month, PubMatic hired former Time Inc. (NYSE: TWX) digital exec Kirk McDonald as the SSP’s first president.

In joining Rubicon from ContextWeb (it’s recently rebranded as PulsePoint), Sears says that the opportunities are much bigger than just optimizing publishers’ yields on their online ad sales. “Whether the ad network, agency trading desk or demand-side platform uses their own bidder or the Rubicon bidder via the company’s REVV for demand interface, digital ad buyers can easily access more than 4 billion impressions every day from 450 high-quality publishers,” Sears said in a statement. “Access to the platform provides buyers scale and quality that is unmatched in the market, with some 20 percent of comScore (NSDQ: SCOR) 500 leading digital properties, including Time Inc., NBC Universal, News Corporation (NSDQ: NWS) and CareerBuilder using REVV.”

Right now, about 10- to 15 percent of the roughly $30 billion being spent for online advertising is going through ad exchanges. Publishers fear that as more agencies and marketers funnel media buying dollars through ad exchanges, there will be increased “channel conflict” — that advertisers will simply aim for automated “audience buying” instead of relying on direct sales from publishers, who have been traditional focal point for reaching consumers.

The idea is that if publishers have more control over the exchange process, they’ll be naturally more willing to place their premium inventory on those bidding platforms, said Fain an interview with paidContent. Fain had run CBS Interactive’s network-wide audience targeting operations. That understanding of publishers’ needs from the inside is viewed as key to encouraging content companies to continue to open more of their inventory to exchanges.

The fairly recent introduction of “private marketplaces,” which put a variety of controls and options in publishers’ hands, has helped unlock some of that ad space. But for the most part, publishers feel they have little choice to to participate in bidding environments. Fain’s job will be to convince his former peers that exchanges can work for them and not reduce the value of their direct sales.

“Private marketplaces are a good option for publishers, because it allows them to access ad exchange dollars that they wouldn’t otherwise get,” Fain said. “In a sense, it’s really an extension of direct sales, and part of the challenge is coming up with improved ways of giving publishers right kinds of controls to make exchanges work for them.”

According to an article in Bloomberg, Pandora already attracts more listeners in big cities like New York and Los Angeles the cities’ biggest radio stations, but even so, analysts do not think that the service will be profitable until 2014.

Pandora today runs a streaming service that lets users listen to listener-generated radio stations, which it offers on a free, unlimited basis with ads running alongside the service. It competes most closely with the likes of Last.fm and is unlike services like Spotify, Rhapsody, Mog and Rdio, which offer users the ability to listen to specific music on-demand, and features subscription tiers starting at around $10/month that give users extra features, such as ad-free listening, mobile access and offline listening.

Although Pandora also works via PCs, the fact that it gets so much of its traffic from mobile platforms means that this is the area that the company will need to look at more closely if investors are not happy with those profitability prospects. And it seems as if they are not: increased competition from Spotify and the others, combined with the short-term profit issues, have shaved 16 percent off the company’s stock since it went public in June of this year.

Pandora hasn’t said it will pivot its service, but you do have to wonder if that could be on the cards. Mobile advertising, which looks like the most obvious revenue generator today, is definitely growing, but possibly not fast enough, and not in the formats that Pandora uses on its site, which range from display ads and video spots, to short audio clips, aimed at both local and national advertisers.

Mobile ads are forecast to generate revenues of $3.3 billion this year worldwide, according to Gartner. And depending on whether you trust Gartner or eMarketer’s figures more, the U.S. alone will bring in either $701.7 million or $1.23 billion. But with a large portions of that advertising coming in the form of search and maps revenues (great news for Google), as well as the old-fashioned format of messaging (that is, apps coming via SMS or picture messages) that doesn’t leave much to share among the many apps and mobile web sites looking for revenues from display and rich-media formats like video and audio clips.

According to Morgan Stanley, Pandora currently gets $20 in mobile advertising for each hour of music provided to listeners, and it will not offset music licensing fees with mobile advertising until 2016, when each hour of mobile music will generate $40, compared to the $23 in licensing fees it will get at that time, a rise of 35 percent on today’s rates. When the company filed its IPO it disclosed that half its revenues get eaten up by copyright royalties on music.

Pandora currently has 23 million active users and Morgan Stanley believes that this base could reach 159 million by 2021. If the company continues with its existing business model for the next decade, the analysts believe that Pandora will be listening to the service for an average of 18 hours per month by 2021, compared to 13 hours in 2010.

But even that raises another issue: whether Pandora can scale up its sales staff to meet that growth.

“It’s really tough to grow our sales organization 125 percent year-over-year,” noted CFO Steve Cakebread, speaking at an investor conference in September.

Although Pandora first debuted with an international service several years ago, it shuttered its international operation over music royalty issues and seems to have put those plans on ice for now.

“This is the most intractable problem of all,” Pandora’s CEO said in March. “It might be there’s simply no chasm bigger than the fundamentally global nature of the internet, and copyright which is still terribly parochial. We’ll be tripping over that, potentially not just for years to come but for decades to come. I wish I could say something more hopeful on that topic.”

» Steve Jobs Departs a World He Helped Transform (BusinessWeek)

» Steve Jobs, 1955 – 2011 (Wired)

» On Steve Jobs (The Atlantic)

» Steve Jobs: 1955-2011 (The New Yorker)

» Steve Jobs Was Always Kind To Me (Or, Regrets of An Asshole) (The Wirecutter)

» The Steve Jobs I Knew (AllThingsD, Walt Mossberg)

» Steve Jobs Is Dead (Gizmodo)

» The Tao of Steve (GigaOm)

Steve Wozniak said he will always remember Jobs’ “very quick mind… and being almost always right… when you should implement a new technology, or when you should be a follower.” (BBC video)

» Steve Jobs: a man of contradiction and genius (Guardian)

» My Neighbor, Steve Jobs (PaloAltoPatch)

» Stevie Wonder sings Steve Jobs’ praises for iOS accessibility (The Next Web)

Selected Quotes:

As Steve said: ” Have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. It’s better to be a pirate than to join the Navy.” — Sara Öhrvall, R&D, Bonnier.

“For those of us lucky enough to get to work with Steve, it’s been an insanely great honor. I will miss Steve immensely.” — Bill Gates.

“Apple (NSDQ: AAPL) II was the first PC you could bring home, open up the packaging like an Xmas gift, use a color screen & play music-He did this in 1977.” — Rob Wiesenthal, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, Sony (NYSE: SNE) Corporation of America Executive Vice President, Sony Entertainment.

“Grateful for his innovation and inspiration. Learned to program on an Apple IIe and now I’m using his company’s tools to start a new company.” — Anthony Soohoo, former SVP & GM, Entertainment & Lifestyle at CBS Interactive; (NYSE: CBS) currently founder and CEO of mobile startup Strongerlabs.

“Steve Jobs moved industries, companies, and most importantly, people. His thoughtful stubbornness and insanely high standards have inspired and will continue to inspire entrepreneurs, leaders, and innovators the world over.” — Jason Kilar, CEO, Hulu.

“Thank you Steve. You were a true inspiration in so many parts of my life, both personal and professional. My hat off to our time’s Da Vinci.” — Daniel Ek, CEO and founder of Spotify.

“Steve Jobs was a visionary who showed us that a passion for design and a reputation for excellence is a winning combination that can change the world. Qualities that we highly value at Condé Nast. His legacy is the millions he inspired, the industries he reinvented, and a future made brighter from his invaluable contributions. It is an end to an era. Our sympathies go out to his family and all of our friends at Apple.” — Bob Sauerberg, president, Condé Nast

“Great appreciation for pioneers like #SteveJobs & @BillGates & lucky to have front-row seat to witness leadership of global transformation.” — Jeff Raikes, CEO of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

“Sad 2 read S. Jobs died. His visions have impacted us all. The way we d biz, connect w/ ppl & enjoy life. His legacy will live on. RIP.” — Johan Bruyneel, cycling legend.

Soohoo’s exit came days after Jim Lanzone was given the post of president of CBS Interactive following the acquisition of his company, Clicker.

The job doesn’t change much, as DeBevoise will be responsible for managing CBS Interactive’s entertainment sites, including CBS.com, TV.com, and Clicker.com (Soohoo obviously didn’t oversee that property). He’ll also handle digital content distribution strategies and the development of both original and show-based digital content, applications and games. DeBevoise will report to Lanzone.

At Starz, DeBevoise ran the company’s overall digital strategy including initiatives related to supporting its various film, TV and digital original content properties, such as the cable channel’s arrangements with iTunes and Netflix (NSDQ: NFLX). DeBevoise also led the generation, evaluation and execution of business development, strategic investment, and growth opportunities for all of Starz’ business units.

Before Starz, DeBevoise held various roles at NBC Universal (NSDQ: CMCSA), in both digital media and business development. DeBevoise’s background also included in the Technology, Media & Telecommunications Investment Banking Group at JPMorgan in San Francisco and New York.

His appointment comes at a pivotal moment for both Starz and CBS in terms of their respective strategies for streaming video. While Starz signed a major streaming deal with Netflix, last month at the Streaming Media conference, DeBevoise cast doubt on how long that relationship would last. “”It’s very, very tough to say if we will be on Netflix in a year,” he said during his panel appearance.

Meanwhile the agreement between CBS Corp.’s Showtime network and Netflix is set to expire this summer. During the company’s earnings call, CEO Les Moonves said the two companies are in talks to expand the deal internationally, particularly into Latin America. While Moonves described himself as happy with the current arrangement with the DVD and streaming video rental service, he’s also interested in exploring similar deals with other companies. That sounds like DeBevoise has his marching orders already. Release