Google Music hasn't been making a lot of noise lately and is, in some ways, in danger of being overshadowed by other cloud music sites. But the Internet giant has roared back with the addition of a key backup feature for users.

Starting immediately, Google Music users are able to instantly restore their music collection with a single click. That applies to both purchased music and any songs they've added from their own library.

It is, of course, a direct response to Apple's iCloud, which automatically backs up App Store purchases, but also lets users backup music from other sources on their hard drive – for a price.

Google Music's new features don't appear to carry any charge – and they're being targeted at the Android audience, though PC users will able to use them as well. The only catch? Users are restricted to two downloads each via the Web interface.

As the end of the year draws close, the inevitable year in review pieces are starting to roll out. The first, from Twitter, however, shows what the hot shows, music, movies and actors were with the Twitterati – and it holds some pretty big surprises.

While it's not exactly shocking that Charlie Sheen led the actor category, Elizabeth Taylor was the most talked about actress (and Raven Symone topped both Natalie Portman and Jennifer Lopez). And of all the shows on TV, ABC Family's "Pretty Little Liars" was the hottest topic.

YouTube sensation Rebecca Black was the year's hottest subject in music, while "Thor" was the most talked about movie. It's worth noting that the year's top four grossing pictures (year to date) – Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 2," "Transformers: Dark of the Moon," "Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides" and "Kung Fu Panda 2" – were all absent from the list.

The hottest topics in select areas were:

TELEVISION

1. Pretty Little Liars
2. Two and a Half Men
3. The Craigslist Killer
4. Golden Globe Awards
5. People's Choice Awards

MOVIES

1. Thor
2. The Dark Knight Rises
3. X-Men: First Class
4. Fast Five
5. Green Hornet

MUSIC

1. Rebecca Black and Friday
2. Nate Dogg
3. FEMME FATALE
4. Gerry Rafferty
5. Gil Scott-Heron

ACTRESSES

1. Elizabeth Taylor
2. Mila Kunis
3. Anne Hathaway
4. Raven Symone
5. Natalie Portman
6. Elisabeth Sladen
7. Jennifer Lopez
8. Nina Dobrev
9. Emma Watson
10. Fernanda Vasconcellos

ACTORS

1. Charlie Sheen
2. Macaulay Culkin
3. Ryan Dunn
4. Ricky Gervais
5. Pete Postlethwaite
6. Tracy Morgan
7. Jake Gyllenhaal
8. Ashton Kutcher
9. Colin Firth
10. James Franco

Taking on the undisputed leader in online search might seem like a fool's mission for any company, regardless of size, but MC Hammer says when it comes to searches that go beyond keywords, Google can't touch what he has planned.

The 80s rapper, real name Stanley Burrell, has spent the past two years working on WireDoo, a search engine he recently introduced at the Web 2.0 summit in San Francisco – and hopes will become the new standard for web inquries.

WireDoo, Hammer told attendees of the summit, adds relationship information to search results, meaning searches for cars would also pull up information on insurance, pricing and consumer safety.

On his shift from music to tech, he mentioned "no one is playing for singles anymore".

The site is currently in pre-beta and is accepting signups. 

Less than three months after formally bursting onto the scene in the United States, streaming music service Spotify has established an impressive foothold.

Reuters reports the company has signed up more than 250,000 paying customers here since its launch. The company revealed last month that its worldwide paying customer base has topped 2 million.

Spotify has not commented on the numbers.

The growth can partially be attributed to the pend up demand for Spotify in recent years. The company built a sterling reputation in Europe, which had US audiences craving it, so an initial burst of registrations wasn't surprising.

Things went into overdrive, though, when Facebook brought the company on stage at its f8 conference this year to showcase its new app structure that will allow users to share content. That put Spotify front and center among the social network's 800 million users. Today, the service is being used by almost 7 million Facebook users.

Launched in 2006, Spotify offers both a free as-supported service as well as the ad-free premium service, which can also be used on mobile devices. The service has a catalog of roughly 13 million songs, adding as many as 10,000 per day.

Couldn't get a ticket to this weekend's iHeartRadio Music Festival in Las Vegas? That doesn't mean you can't watch it.

The Clear Channel-sponsored mega-concert will be streamed in high definition exclusively on Microsoft's Xbox 360, giving gamers (and their families) the chance to see the acts perform live.

The concerts, which will feature Lady Gaga, Jay-Z, Coldplay, Kenny Chesney, The Black Eyed Peas, Steven Tyler, Alicia Keys, Jennifer Lopez, Carrie Underwood, Rascal Flatts, Bruno Mars, Kelly, Usher, Sting and Jeff Beck (among others), will take place this Friday and Saturday. Tickets to the show sold out in 10 minutes.

The concert will also be audio streamed.

“This partnership with Xbox 360 means that those who cannot be in Las Vegas in person will have the opportunity to experience the event as well through an HD video stream exclusively on Xbox LIVE,” said John Hogan, president and CEO of Clear Channel.

The collection of big apps is meant to promote the company's iHeartRadio app, which is designed to take back audience from services like Pandora and Spotify by offering easy access to over 800 terrestrial and digital-only stations via the iPod and iPhone.

Amazon and Google caused a stir when they launched their cloud music storage initiatives. Rather than following the path Apple eventually would, both companies decided to bypass securing permissions from the record labels, causing quite a tempest in a teapot in the process.

Now it seems the pair have the courts on their side.

On Tuesday, a federal judge ruled that users, ultimately, are responsible for what's stored in their cloud accounts. In other words, the companies hosting them are not. That puts services like Amazon Cloud Drive and Google Music under the protective umbrella of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) – which essentially says that websites cannot be held liable for copyright infringement if they promptly take down infringing material once they're notified by copyright holders.

Labels had complained that by end-running the music industry, cloud storage sites like the ones Amazon and Google are offering would become havens for pirates to store their files. Assuming the ruling (which was tied to a long-standing case against music locker site MP3tunes.com) withstands appeal, the onus will shift to them to find those pirates.

The court also ruled that a playback from a cloud system does not constitute a "public performance," which brings other rights payments into the picture.

The king of retail is launching a new digital service just as it throws in the towel on another.

Wal-Mart has brought its Vudu movie streaming service to the iPad in a move to expand its distribution. But as it dives deeper into video, the company has announce plans to shut down its MP3 download service by the end of the month.

It is, in many ways, a decision by the company to change battlefronts. The MP3 store was never a real competitor to Apple's iTunes product – and after eight years of trying to make a mark, the company is cutting its losses. (The increased footprint of Amazon in the digital music space didn't help matters, either.)

Even a price war, Wal-Mart's usual strength, didn't help – as 88 cents (the Wal-Mart price) vs. 99 cents on other services wasn't enough to steer consumers.

Vudu, meanwhile, is pushing hard to take a piece of the Netflix pie. Starting tomorrow, iPad owners can forego the App store and access streaming movies from the division directly from their browsers.

It's a unique strategy, but a risky one. Consumers have been trained to download apps and don't mind doing so. Browser-based streaming may not require constant updates, but it will also rob the company of an icon on the iPad's main screen – often the best reminder that the option is available to users.

Spotfiy rode into the U.S. market on a high wave of anticipation and hype – and it looks like that pre-publicity has really worked well for it.

The cloud-based music streaming service has captured 1.4 million users in its first month – with 175,000 of those subscribers selecting the pay option.

The numbers are courtesy of All Things D, which sites confidential sources close to the company. And to save you the math, that's a conversion rate of 12.5 percent – an astounding number by any standard.

The numbers are still tiny compared to Spotify's European footprint, which is currently about 1.6 million – and they're still well below Rhapsody's 800,000 subscribers.

Still, after just one month, it's a very impressive start.

Spotify, the music streaming service that is the toast of Europe, is finally on the way to the U.S.

The company launched a landing page today for Americans to sign up for an invite to the service, though stopped short of providing launch details. That's not likely to discourage fan, though, who have been patiently waiting for it to clear deals with recording companies and get clearance to launch here.

The arrival of Spotify, a streaming music service that allows people to search by artist, album, record label, genre or playlist (and then buy a permanent copy if they like the song), will shake up the burgeoning cloud music space – which has been a battleground for Apple, Google and Amazon so far.

Launched in 2006, Spotify offers both a free as-supported service as well as an ad-free premium service, which can also be used on mobile devices. The European service has a catalog of roughly 13 million songs, adding as many as 10,000 per day. Its subscriber base tops 1 million people.

Wired Magazine last year reported that the service was making more money for labels in Sweden than any retailer, both brick and mortar and online.

The company has been in talks with labels for some time in regards to the U.S. launch – and while nothing formal has been announced, the fact that it's accepting signups indicates deals have either been signed or are imminent.

Among the company's fans are Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg and Demi Moore.

The sky is getting pretty crowded these days.

The already competitive cloud music space has another competitor stepping into the fray. Best Buy today unveiled plans for its own service, letting people access their digital music collection from virtually anywhere.

Dubbed Cloud Music, the service will compete with Apple's iCloud, Amazon's Cloud Drive and Google Music – three tough competitors whose reach in the digital space is much more dominant than the brick and mortar retailer.

It's a curious offering. The free service will only allow you to access music via the Best Buy Web player. If you want to add an app to access tunes on your iPhone, Android device or Blackberry, it will cost $4 per month. (Amazon and Google's services have a more robust free option.)

The company's also not offering an easy transfer service for music you buy in the store. Users will have to digitize and upload their songs and playlists on their own – a requirement that could steer people to other offerings.