BREAKING: Spotify and Microsoft have launched Spotify’s mobile music app on the Windows phone 6 platform, joining their apps on the iPhone, Android and Symbian phones. For what it’s worth, Windows Phone 6 is the old Windows Mobile 6xx.

The features on Windows phone 6 include all the similar features of previous apps (listen to tracks, stream over WiFi or 2.5/3G, access playlists, run Spotify in the background, play in offline mode etc)

Users can download the new app directly by visiting m.spotify.com, and it is also available for download on Windows Marketplace for mobile.

Current users of popular Windows phone 6 devices will be able to download app on their phones. Using Spotify on the mobile requires a Premium account.

Serial UK entrepreneur Alex van Someren has joined Amadeus Capital Partners as a Partner in the Amadeus & Angels Seed Fund. If you know the UK tech startup scene then you probably know pony-tailed van Someren and his robust and edgy commentary on the UK scene over conversation at various events. And hopefully he’ll be a shot in the arm for Amadeus, which is something of a laggard in the web startup scene, after making it’s name with legendary hardware companies out of Cambridge like Acorn.

The Amadeus & Angels Seed Fund is a £10 million fund and has so far invested £5m in six companies, including XMOS, AiHIT, Linkdex, Synature, Ambient and Onedrum.

The private buying club wars of Latin America, begun they have.

Privalia Venta Directa has secured €70m ($95m) from General Atlantic and Index Ventures, plus existing shareholder Highland Capital, to basically roll-up all the private online sales clubs in the region, as well as consolidate positions in Europe, according to Lucas Carné, joint chief executive and co-founder of Privalia.

It’s the latest in a number of investments by VCs in the exploding world of private online sales clubs. The sites are most popular in France, Spain and Italy, especially amongst fashion-conscious consumers, a €3bn sales market in Europe. In the UK there are already plenty of ways to get discounted fashion. These clubs mash together members looking for the same brands, usually fashion, to create a group discount. Brands use them to get rid of excess inventory in flash sales over one or two days, or win new business through special offers.

Following Flexiant’s latest funding round last month, another European cloud computing startup gets a cash injection today.

Zimory, which delivers “secure, scalable, accessible, end-to-end global solutions for private, public and database cloud”, has secured €4 million in a round led by Creathor Venture, High-Tech Gruenderfonds and VC Fonds Technologie Berlin (managed by IBB Beteiligungsgesellschaft), T-Venture and KFWand.

MePlease, the integrated social media and mobile platform, has partnered with PizzaExpress. The restaurant chain has adopted the UK startup’s technology to power “interactive customer voting” during the final round of their ‘Create Your Pizza Challenge’, which has already seen over 48,000 entries.

MePlease’s mobile marketing platform gives businesses the ability to offer voting, competitions, location check-ins, promotions, and to solicit customer feedback, to help achieve specific business goals such as increasing loyalty, customer acquisition and driving footfall. However, unlike many similar offerings, MePlease is largely powered by SMS so that it works on any phone and “can connect with any business or service, from national brands to small businesses.”

LeWeb is the largest tech innovation conference in Europe. Last year, the Paris-based event attracted some 2,500 participants from 50 countries. LeWeb will be held December 8 and 9 this year in Paris. TechCrunch has happily been a partner since 2007. And this year it will feature a startup competition that will be a bit like a mini TechCrunch Disrupt.

As with last year, LeWeb will feature 16 startups which will pitch in the startup room on December 8, the first day of the conference. From those 16, a group of judges will pick the best 3 — and those companies will get to present the next day, December 9, on the LeWeb main stage. LeWeb has done a startup competition in previous years, but it has always been relegated to this startup room, which has about 400 seats. This year, the three companies picked will now enter the big room, where they’ll present in front of nearly 1,500 people. And unlike previous years, the winners won’t be announced beforehand, so each company will present to win.

[Updated 12 May 2011: This post was a ruse for The Apprentice TV show. Read why here] The average shelf life of a smartphone app is pretty short. For free apps, only about 20 percent of users (in the case of iPhone apps) return to use the app the first day after they download it, and then it quickly drops off from there. So there is a very brief window of time to capture people’s attention and potential revenues.

Slangatang is a beta just out of a new free sound entertainment app which allows people to listen to humorous soundbites from characters from around the world. The app is now on the Blackberry and Android markets or for Nokia phones via text (standard network rates apply, you can download the app from here (mobile download link or in BlackBerry app world).

On the face of it it’s pretty simple. But what’s more interesting is that unlike traditional Soundboard apps which are a dime a dozen, the creators have realised that it’s going to be smarter to allow users themselves to upload the quirky phrases themselves.

Ecommerce giant Amazon.com has long been rumored to make a $2 billion play for online private sales club sensation Vente-Privée, but so far a deal hasn’t happened. Now rumors are swirling that Amazon is in late-stage negotiations to acquire Spain-based rival BuyVip instead.

Company executives have denied the rumors so far, but Spanish business publication CincoDías cites multiple sources familiar with the talks having confirmed the acquisition to them. Paperwork is being signed today, according to said sources.

This is a guest post by Simon Jenner, Head of Incubation for Birmingham Science Park Aston. Simon runs a Tech startup incubator based in Birmingham called Entrepreneurs for the Future.

We hear a lot about the European Tech scene being centred around London with fledgling scenes in Berlin & Paris. This got me thinking, what about Birmingham? It feels like we are in a scene, but when can you call it a scene? Does TechCrunch have to declare it a scene for it to qualify?

Before we can decide whether a place has a Tech scene, we need to decide what the building blocks for a Tech scene are? I feel that any fledgling scene needs to have the following elements before it can be truly called a scene: