SOCIAL STREAMER TOPS YAHOO IN UNIQUE VISITORS: The top music streaming service — radio or otherwise — based on U.S. traffic is social-network / streamer iMeem, according to analytics company Compete.com. According to Compete (a competitor to Alexa), the number of unique U.S. visitors to iMeem leapt 58% year-to-year in March to over 10 million, pushing the service past Yahoo! Music (which fell 14%). AOL Music fell 30% from last year to just over 4.6 million U.S. monthly uniques. Pandora more than doubled its reach to almost 2 million (ranking it 8th), and Last.fm’s modest growth pushed it past 1.4 million for 10th. According to Compete, streaming is far and away the most popular way to access music online, with approximately 28 million monthly users, far outpacing legal downloads (less than 10 million), subscription services (about 5 million), and P2P file-sharing (well under 5 million). There’s more, including charts, from Compete’s blog here.

NOTE RE: DEFINITION OF ‘STREAMING’: We should point out that most of the properties rated by Compete in the story above offer on-demand streams of specific songs and/or music videos (some legally, some illegally). Of the ten properties listed in the chart, only Pandora is a primarily radio service.

CC LAUNCHES SITE TO “SHOWCASE” RADIO’S NEW AD OPPORTUNITIES: It’s time to monetize all those new ad opportunities made possible by online streaming, wireless, and eRockster. To that end, Clear Channel Radio has produced a website designed to help advertisers navigate and maximize the opportunities of the various new radio platforms and ad models the company now offers. TotalRadius is designed to “showcase… distribution channels that now include on-air, online, on-demand, mobile text and digital broadcasts, and ads that vary from blinks, sponsorships, takeovers, to pre-roll online video formats.” Read the press announcement here.

VIRGIN RADIO ASKS LISTENERS WHICH ADS ROCK: Virgin Radio UK is letting listeners vote online for the best ads it airs, as a way to promote brand engagement as well as encourage advertisers to make better radio. For “Virgin Radio’s Favourite Ad of the Moment,” the station posts a list to its website of the best ads currently airing, and invites listeners to choose their personal favorite. Top vote-getters are then spotlighted with specially created on-air imaging and prominence withing ad breaks, thus higher visibility for the client. The initiative is aimed at eventually delivering advertisers a handbook of sorts on how best to target Virgin Radio’s audience. Said Nick Hewat, Virgin Radio’s Sales Director, “It falls upon all media owners to look over the horizon and find new ways to help advertising achieve its desired effect.” Read the full story here.

INTERACTIVE ONE SIGNS AD DEAL WITH ALLHIPHOP.COM: A multi-year deal has been signed between Interactive One (the digital division of Radio One) and AllHipHop.com, in which all ad sales for the popular music site will be handled by Interactive One. AllHipHop.com joins Interactive One’s other audiences from 53 Radio One websites, as well as Blackplanet.com and Newsone.com among others. RadioOne says this deal will create “the largest and most scalable online advertising network targeting the African-American consumer.” Read the full Radio Ink article here.

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