Newly crowned “American Idol” David Cook, already topping the iTunes music download charts, said on Friday he hopes to put out a rock album that will “make the hair on your neck stand up.”

Cook, 25, a Missouri guitarist who was tending bar before auditioning for the most watched show on U.S. television, also said his best musical advice came from Frank Sinatra.

Cook won the seventh season of the singing competition and a recording contract on Wednesday, beating 17-year-old crooner David Archuleta by a 12 million-vote margin in the record 97.5 million votes cast by viewers by telephone and text message.

Cook’s first single “The Time of My Life” and the three songs he sang in this week’s “American Idol” finale were the top four downloads on Apple Inc’s iTunes music store on Friday.

Cook said he would not be putting out an album of standards even though he won fans on the show, which is broadcast on the Fox network, a unit of News Corp, with alternative versions of pop classics such as “Billie Jean” and Lionel Richie’s “Hello.”

“I think it’s going to be a mixture of my writing and hopefully writing with other people. I just want to come out of the gate with a solid record,” he told reporters in a telephone conference call.

“It’ll probably be a rock record. I just want to make a record that’s going to make the hair on your neck stand up … Even if it doesn’t do well commercially, as long as I can put out a record I am proud of — that’s the goal right now. And hopefully the success will follow.”

Cook is not likely to start work on the first album until the Top 10 Idols finish a three-month U.S. tour starting in July

The fund will be known as iFund, and will be led by Matt Murphy of Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, a venture capital firm in Silicon Valley.

The move echoes the $10 million fund created by CEO of Facebook Mark Zuckerberg, which was distributed to startups creating applications for Facebook.com.

According to the Kleiner Perkins website, “KPCB’s iFund is a $100 million investment initiative that will fund market-changing ideas and products that extend the revolutionary new iPhone and iPod touch platform. The iFund is agnostic to size and stage of investment and will invest in companies building applications, services and components.”

Also announced over the weekend was news that Sun Microsystems are currently making use of the iPhone SDK to create a Java variant for the handset, which they say should be finished by Q2 2008.

iTunes Says Its Customers Top 50 Million.

February 26, 2008—Apple® today announced that iTunes® (www.itunes.com) is now the number two music retailer in the US, behind only Wal-Mart, based on the latest data from the NPD Group*. Apple also announced that there are now over 50 million iTunes Store customers. iTunes has sold over four billion songs, with an incredible 20 million songs sold on Christmas Day 2007 alone, and offers the world’s largest music catalog of over six million songs from all of the major and thousands of independent labels.

“We’d like to thank the over 50 million music lovers who have helped the iTunes Store reach this incredible milestone,” said Eddy Cue, Apple’s vice president of iTunes. “We continue to add great new features like iTunes Movie Rentals to give our customers even more reason to love iTunes.”

Last month, Apple launched iTunes Movie Rentals featuring movies from all of the major movie studios including 20th Century Fox, The Walt Disney Studios, Warner Bros., Paramount, Universal Studios Home Entertainment, Sony Pictures Entertainment, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM), Lionsgate and New Line Cinema. Users can rent movies and watch them on their PCs or Macs, all current generation iPods**, iPhone™ and on a widescreen TV with Apple TV®. iTunes Movie Rentals will offer over 1,000 titles by the end of this month, including over 100 titles in stunning high definition video with 5.1 Dolby Digital surround sound which users can rent directly from their widescreen TV using Apple TV.

iTunes 7.6 is available as a free download at www.itunes.com. iTunes Movie Rentals are available in the US only and are $2.99 (US) for library titles and $3.99 (US) for new releases, and high definition versions are priced just one dollar more with library titles at $3.99 (US) and new releases at $4.99 (US). Movie rentals from the iTunes Store for Mac® or Windows require iTunes 7.6. iTunes Movie Rentals require a valid credit card with a billing address in the country of purchase.

*Based on data from market research firm the NPD Group’s MusicWatch survey that captures consumer reported past week unit purchases and counts one CD representing 12 tracks, excluding wireless transactions. The iTunes Music Store became the second-largest music retailer in the US after Wal-Mart, based on the amount of music sold during 2007.

**Movie rentals work on iPod® classic, iPod nano with video and iPod touch.

Apple ignited the personal computer revolution in the 1970s with the Apple II and reinvented the personal computer in the 1980s with the Macintosh. Today, Apple continues to lead the industry in innovation with its award-winning computers, OS X operating system and iLife and professional applications. Apple is also spearheading the digital media revolution with its iPod portable music and video players and iTunes online store, and has entered the mobile phone market with its revolutionary iPhone.

Feist continues to win recognition from her peers, collecting four Grammy nominations — and now, winning the Shortlist Music Prize for her album “The Reminder.”

The Shortlist, in its seventh year, pays tribute to artists who haven’t hit the mainstream yet. Gary Lightbody of Snow Patrol and Ronnie Vannucci of the Killers were among this year’s panel of judges.

Feist’s “The Reminder” is “the album of the year for 2007 or any year I can think of: It’s modern and classic all at once,” Lightbody said in a statement released Monday. “There are so many kinds of beauty in this record.”

Leslie Feist, who uses only her last name professionally, hails from Canada. She grew up in Calgary and spent her teenage years as lead singer for a hardcore punk band.

Her Grammy nominations include best new artist and best pop vocal album. The Grammys will be presented Sunday in Los Angeles.

Finalists for the 2007 Shortlist Music Prize also included Arcade Fire, Burial, Justice, LCD Soundsystem, M.I.A., Spoon, Stars, Wilco and Working for a Nuclear Free City.

Feist, 31, is the second woman to snag the prize, following Cat Power’s win last year. Past winners also include Damien Rice, N.E.R.D., TV on the Radio and Sufjan Stevens.

On the Net:

• Shortlist: http://www.shortlistofmusic.com/
• Feist: http://www.listentofeist.com/

Yahoo’s change in music offerings comes as Microsoft tries to acquire the company for $44.6 billion.

By K.C. Jones InformationWeek February 5, 2008 03:13 PM 

Yahoo (NSDQ: YHOO)’s on-demand music service will be managed by Rhapsody, the company said this week.

Yahoo Music general manager Ian C. Rogers announced the Yahoo Music Unlimited partnership through his blog on Monday.

Rogers said the music service took resources away from other objectives. That includes music.yahoo.com, the company’s music video site, and Launchcast Radio, which allows users to create their own “stations.”

Rogers characterized the decision as a “major strategic shift” and said that Yahoo Music draws 25 million users a month, but the unlimited service accounts for a small portion.

“It wasn’t an easy decision,” he said. “We’re huge fans of Yahoo Music Unlimited and those customers include many of our most loyal and valuable.”

Yahoo Music Unlimited subscribers will be able to migrate easily to Rhapsody, and sometime this year music.yahoo.com will integrate with Rhapsody, allowing customers to use music.yahoo.com, as well as Rhapsody, with no increase in price. The service will work with PCs, Macs, Firefox, Safari, TiVo, and Sonos, Rogers said.

“We sincerely apologize for any hassle and thank you for joining us in the Yahoo Music Unlimited run,” he said. “It was a wild ride for all of us.”

Rogers said the decision does not mean that Yahoo will decrease music investments. He said the company acquired FoxyTunes, a media toolbar for Firefox and Internet Explorer that works with more than 30 media players, allowing users to look up lyrics, bios, and videos while they listen to songs.

The change in music offerings comes as Microsoft (NSDQ: MSFT) attempts to acquire Yahoo for $44.6 billion. Less than a week ago, Yahoo announced an earnings loss of 23% and plans to cut 1,000 jobs.