Possibly the coolest invention since the gramophone*
My advice to you if you own shares in Apple:
Sell, Sell, Sell.
No, not because Steve Jobs is stepping back from running the company for a while (I reckon it’s permanent, myself).
But because iTunes’ business model is about to be trounced by the Swedes.
I’m a little behind the curve here, but Spotify is quite simply brilliant.
It’s the kind of invention that only requires around twenty seconds to appreciate, which is a strong indication of its simple genius.
Imagine your hard-drive being linked to the catalogues of the major record companies. And you’ve got free access to all of it. Yep, free. You can stream as much music as you want, and the only down-side is the short advert every 30mins or so.
Oh, did I say it’s free?
So you can’t download the music to your MP3 player… yet.
But this bit of software is so cool, you won’t care.
Hilariously, the Americans can’t get their hands on it yet without being nice to people or handing over some cash.
We Brits on the other hand just need to click here.
Hat-tip: Matt
* P.S. I might be exaggerating a little
16 Jan 2009 11:57
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Tags: Itunes Music Software Spotify
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Comments (14)
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14 comments by 6 or more people
[Skip to the latest comment]Leighton Joskey
Is it not kind of like www.we7.com just with an application install or am I missing something? Doesn’t seem to go into a lot of detail on the website.
16 Jan 2009, 12:04
Nick Howes
They’re not that often – I’d say one advert is played once or twice an hour.
16 Jan 2009, 12:08
Mathew Mannion
I’ve not seen we7.com, but Spotify’s killer feature is collaborative playlists, which allow you to create playlists and then share them with friends, and even allow them to add or remove tracks from it. Not unlike this one:
http://open.spotify.com/user/mathewjm/playlist/7ud3Yr9VsvXuQakU1FnHMV
16 Jan 2009, 12:09
Leighton Joskey
we7 does play list sharing though not editing collaboratively. It does have a nice unsigned music system where you can sign up to rate new unsigned bands/artists and the best received get put up onto the system for everyone to access.
Worth a go.
I’ll have to keep an eye out for Spotify for when they open up the free access! It’ll have to be good to move me off we7 – after all I have no friends to collaborate my play lists with so spotify has lost an advantage!!
16 Jan 2009, 12:24
Andrew Ingram
The songs I’ve listened to on it seem to be lacking in bass.
Also, for a swedish app it’s missing a helluva lot of scandinavian music.
16 Jan 2009, 12:25
Mathew Mannion
Spotify does have free access for UK users – https://www.spotify.com/en/get-started (link was at the bottom of the entry)
16 Jan 2009, 12:26
D’oh. Obviously I meant every 30mins or so.
I’ve started a playlist at http://open.spotify.com/user/chrisdoidge/playlist/571JE5CKwNGgKKq628Ao2Z
16 Jan 2009, 12:28
Mathew Mannion
@Andy – some sound quality problems, particularly with range, appear to be a known issue
16 Jan 2009, 12:33
Leighton Joskey
“Spotify does have free access for UK users – https://www.spotify.com/en/get-started (link was at the bottom of the entry)”
Doh!
16 Jan 2009, 14:08
Steve Purdham
Hi Chris
Would love to hear your views on We7 , its UK Based and can be accessed by any browser and doesn’t need to download a application. You dont even need to login unless you want to build playlists, but you can share all the music with your friends. You probably can even drop our widget onto your blog to play your music from there.
Anyway check it out and let me know what you think.
Steve
CEO We7
We7 – Great Music Free
18 Jan 2009, 19:37
James Taylor
Spotify is excellent.. I have been using it for a few weeks now and the range of music on there and the speed at which streaming starts is fantastic. And the UI is nice and uncluttered.
Apple REALLY need to create some kind of “streaming or unlimited downalods for flat fee” type model for iTunes as they risk being left behind..
30 Jan 2009, 09:22
Steve Rumsby
What’s Spotify’s business model? Do they make enough money from those “every 30 mins” adverts to keep the service running? Doesn’t sound likely. Not that I know that much about the advertising business:-) Or are the adverts going to get more frequent over time…
30 Jan 2009, 16:18
Desi Forums
One word; Brilliant!
10 Feb 2009, 02:34
Carrie
Just to let everyone know, we are now providing content to Spotify, so if you are an unsigned artist looking to get your music onto Spotify, its never been easier!
info@dittomusic.com for all details
http://www.dittomusic.com
23 Apr 2009, 16:37
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