Live Nation Purchases Music App Rexly

Innovations in the music industry continue to surprise and delight avid listeners worldwide, with new applications and online radio stations such as Pandora

and Spotify sprouting up constantly. Live Nation Entertainment

wants to get in on the action, as the company has now

social music discovery startup Rexly. Live Nation dished out the dough for the San Francisco-based company that developed an iPhone application to helps users find new music through their friends. While the terms of the deal were not revealed, the founders of Rexly (Joel Resnicow, Kyle Fleming and Bradley Lautenbach) expressed their reasoning for the agreement. “Rexly is joining forces with Live Nation Labs first and foremost because of shared values and vision,” the Rexly team told Venture Beat. “We are all lean entrepreneurs. We obsess over user-driven design and data-driven decision making. Most important, we are deeply committed to creating phenomenal experiences for music fans, nurturing the music tech community and breathing new life into a challenged industry.” The merger comes about two months after Miller + Tabak & Co. raised estimates on the event ticketing company, stating that the attendance for 55 festivals should reach about 3 million. With revenue set to hit close to $6 billion in fiscal 2012, it appears Live Nation can afford to purchase fresh, exciting businesses at a time when the music industry is rapidly evolving. Rexly is an original platform that connects Apple's

iTunes and social network Facebook

in an effort to make song recommendations through friends following friends. At a time when several applications of similar magnitude are being introduced (i.e. SoundHound, Ping, etc.), Live Nation believes that the brains behind their new app can help deliver the ideal vision they have outlined for the future. As the deal comes to a close, Rexly is set to begin hiring a slew of employees (including pesky music hackers) in an effort to get things rolling at Live Nation Labs. Live Nation Entertainment closed yesterday at $8.96, up almost 8% year-to-date.