DISQUS

holdenpage · 4 months ago

Used Spotify through proxy. I didn't enjoy it all. Still stuck on Lala.com and I think I will stay that way.

Louis Gray · 4 months ago

Didn't enjoy it? Why not? And what do you like about Lala.com that Spotify doesn't do?

holdenpage · 4 months ago

I am a big fan of strict web based applications, which really limits my interest in Spotify (but I still used it for about a good week).

I love Lala's business model. I pay ten cents for each song for an unlimited stream of that song, so for one dollar I can add ten songs to my music library. Also, when I pay ten cents for a web song, that amount is automatically deducted from the price of downloading a free-drm version of the song.

I also love Lala's social features. Facebook connect is fully supported and I can push songs that I purchase to Facebook and/or Twitter for other people to listen to. Facebook is especially useful because a music player is included.

I also know that Lala has on iPhone application in the works that was demoed on Techcrunch a while back.

The only thing I like about Spotify more than Lala is, as you stated, the very vast library of music. Also, I can see where the ten dollars a month could be a real steal for people who listen to TONS of music. I find Lala to be more reasonable for my demand.

ThatAdamGuy · 4 months ago

I have to agree with Holden here. I'm very underwhelmed.
- lala lets you share music with anyone. People in the U.S. can hear the entire song, people outside the U.S. can hear at least a 30 second snippet... WITHOUT downloading anything. lala has nice short URLs that just work.
- Napster offers a totally ad-free offering, both web-based and app-based, for just $5 a month which includes 5 MP3s (making the subscription basically free). For anyone that buys ~5 songs a month on iTunes OR for whom $5 is not that much moolah, why would they pick Spotify over Napster? (Napster offers free listening, too, btw, albeit very hidden and under an admittedly clunky interface: http://free.napster.com).

Personally, my take on why Spotify has gotten such buzz is because it's the first legal listen-on-demand service that's free. But I have my doubts that free-on-demand is sustainable given the greedy labels, and with lala offering limited-on-demand for free and Napster offering full on-demand for close-to-free, I don't see what niche Spotify will fill successfully here.

Chris Nixon · 4 months ago

The only problem I have with Spotify is the price for the premium service. £10 a month is quite a lot, especially in the current economic climate. If it were £5, then I think I could justify it. In the mean time the adverts are pretty unobtrusive, if a touch repetitive.

Louis Gray · 4 months ago

There will always be a tradeoff in terms of what you pay. Radio is free, with ads and you can't choose the songs. Satellite radio is about $13 a month with no ads, and topical stations. iTunes is pay per track. Spotify is unlimited, without ads if you pay, and you pick the songs. I think each has their own merits.

Mitchell Tsai · 4 months ago

Looking forward to trying it some day...

Louis Gray · 4 months ago

Lifehacker loved it too. So I guess I'm not crazy. http://lifehacker.com/5330148/spotify-is-the-be...

Holden (First God Of FF) · 4 months ago

I know a few people who used it via proxy, they loved it as well.

Jer White · 4 months ago

Excellent choice of tunes, Louis! Yes Spotify really is an amazing application. I've been hooked on it here in the UK since the start of the year. It's easier and faster to use than downloading from a torrent, and the choice of tracks has just hit the 4 million mark. I went premium a couple of months back and feel I'm getting excellent value for money. It got rid of the ads, gave me higher-bitrate streaming, and means I'm ready for the mobile version when it's released. All for the price of one CD or album download a month.

Although Spotify has several million users across Europe now, many music fans still don't "get it" (literally and conceptually). The shift from owning a CD to owning an mp3 instead is still happening, so the new shift from owning music to streaming music is more than many can take. There's also a view that because it's "free" the artists do not get paid. This is not the case since every time a track is streamed the artist's label will receive a cent or two.

Here in the UK we've been a bit starved on music services compared with the US, even though Britain is the #2 exporter of music in the world. Sure some of the buzz around Spotify must be because there's not a lot to compete with it here, but I think most of it justified: Spotify is simply a fantastic service for music fans.

Spotify CEO Daniel Ek held an impromptu Q&A on Twitter yesterday, prompted (it seems) by his belief that the term sheet stories you mention were not entirely accurate. When asked what was Spotify's biggest risk, he replied: "Generating enough revenues for artists to see us as a viable platform. Always hard to get right with a 'free' product."

I've been a fan of music for over 20 years and Spotify has changed my life. So much so in fact that I've been writing a blog about it all year called The Pansentient League ( http://pansentient.com ). There are hundreds of sites and services that have sprung up already to support/leech Spotify and I maintain a list of them all there.

Jer aka Afront
http://pansentient.com

Louis Gray · 4 months ago

I know I've only scratched the surface in Spotify. Having it on the iPhone sounds amazing, so long as I am not selecting tracks while I drive, so mastering playlists and sharing will be a must.

Hampus Jakobsson · 4 months ago

I can just agree that Spotify is amazing!

Patrik Johansson · 4 months ago

I'm glad you liked it. Since I've started to use Spotify I haven't looked back at iTunes. Spotify is really fast compared to iTunes (on a pc) which is a beast!

Adam Lasnik · 4 months ago

Well, frankly, almost anything compared to iTunes (on a PC at least) is likely to come out looking favorably :p. Even Windows Media Player is a win in comparison, and J River Media Center -- while crazy complex in some ways -- is insanely more useful and non-AAAAAARGH!-inducing than iTunes.

Patrik Johansson · 4 months ago

@Adam yeah you're right hehe. I wonder what'll happen with iPod and iTunes if we'll see Android-based media players, very much like iPod touch, with Spotify on them. I'm not sure yet, but Spotify could bring iTunes down.

Kevin · 4 months ago

So how does this work with my iPod? Oh wait - it doesn't. I still have to have a real music library of real music.

Louis Gray · 4 months ago

And I have thousands of tracks on my iPhone which I own, which you call "real music". It may soon work on the iPhone if the application is approved.

Adam Lasnik · 4 months ago

Patrik, I think the first on-demand service <$10/month that's available on the desktop AND for the iPhone *or* Android is going to become pretty massively popular. Spotify has an app in development for Android, and I'd be shocked if lala doesn't have a mobile app up their sleeve, too. In fact, I'm betting the roadblock here isn't technical (it's can't be that hard to create a streaming service on an iPhone or Android phone technically), but rather contractual and financial. Though while I'm a Rhapsody subscriber, I don't hold out much hope for those folks even technically; their desktop player is still sadly an abomination and makes even Napster's app look beautiful by comparison.

Duncan Riley · 4 months ago

How is Kaz James obscure?

Louis Gray · 4 months ago

Kaz James was obscure to me until a few weeks ago, and he doesn't have the immediate brand recognition of some of the others I mentioned.

Ike · 4 months ago

I wonder what the Spotify team thinks about Microsoft's upcoming free multi-platform music streaming service based on Seeqpod : http://www.mobiletechworld.com/2009/08/04/micro...

Mark Essel · 4 months ago

Trance music! Sounds like lala may be a better choice according to Holden. I use last.fm and grooveshark for my music needs.
My favorite last.fm station is based on the Sounds From the Ground (a band I happened upon while listening to Grooveshark to a match of Orbital Transient).
In case you're curious, here are my loved tracks so far: http://www.last.fm/user/victusfate/library/loved

Louis Gray · 4 months ago

Life is better with trance music, period. I think people would be more productive, and there would be fewer political battles and military conflicts if there were steady trance in the background. :)

lostmoya · 4 months ago

I've been using Spotify in the UK since the beginning of the year, and I agree with LG's review - it's really really good. It's been getting a lot better in recent months too, as it adds more and more songs from smaller and bigger labels. There are still holes. The Beatles, of course, Pink Floyd and Tool to name a few. Another important factor for me is last.fm integration, which is flawless.

Manuel Mas · 4 months ago

J River Media Player rocks.

Mark Evans · 4 months ago

Louis,

I've completely envious, as well as curious about whether Spotify is meeting the needs of online music consumers in a way that the music labels should have done years ago. Of course, the fact the labels are investors in Spotify suggests this may, in fact, be the case. :)

Louis Gray · 4 months ago

I don't know about Spotify's plans to hit Canada, but like other services, it may be slower than you like. This has big potential.

Manuel Mas · 4 months ago

Spotify rocks too. My favorite feature (other than free music) is the collaborative/shared playlists. Care to share one with me Louis?

Manuel Mas · 4 months ago

Also, how do you see this differing in any way to Grooveshark which offers loads of free music through their browser app?

Justin Long · 4 months ago

yeah but how do you use it in the USA?? I've tried and it tells me its not available in my country!

Amani · 4 months ago

When do you think Apple make a decision about it?

Steve Cornelius · 4 months ago

Looking forward to seeing it released everywhere. You wrote that the free version has advertising...is that advertising ON the site or audio ads played between songs?

Jer White · 4 months ago

There's audio advertising lasting a minute or two every 20 minutes or so of listening. The Spotify client (there's no website involved) also has banner ads that pop in and out at the same time (usually to provide a clickable link to whatever audio ad is playing). Perhaps ironically, this often leads you to iTunes (or in my case a dead link as I don't have Apple software on my PC).

Steve Cornelius · 4 months ago

Thanks for the clarification, Jer.

MonTemplar · 4 months ago

I've tried Spotify, and it is indeed very good, although I'm not about to stop buying music (mainly as MP3s via Amazon, 7Digital, eMusic or other such sites) any time soon. One thing I would like to see (and which would probably make me use Spotify a lot more) is the ability to click a button in Spotify to say "I want to own this track / album" ... if they offered iTunes as one of the options for that, do you think Apple might see them in a new light? ;)

Patrik Johansson · 4 months ago

@Adam Yes, I don't think it's that expensive. Especially when they release apps for iPhone and Android. I payed for one year, it's nice to not have to pay every month:) The question is, is Spotify going to survive if they don't get A LOT of premium subscribers? Hmm, Rhapsody...haven't tried it.

Adam Lasnik · 4 months ago

Manuel... Grooveshark is, in my mind and many others, of questionable legality. Being a collection of songs uploaded from regular people, rather than a collection organized centrally, it's also rather a mess. On the upside, it has some awesome songs that aren't available via more "traditional" means online or offline. But on the downside, it's quite often difficult or impossible to accomplish the simple task of streaming a complete album on Grooveshark.

Adam Lasnik · 4 months ago

Patrik, one thing that fascinates and puzzles me is the seeming readiness of Europeans to pay a monthly or yearly fee for music. I've been paying for one or more music subscriptions for years here in the U.S., but I've been pretty conspicuously the exception rather than the rule, oft being derided as a sucker who gets "vaporware" instead of *buying and owning* new music. Hrumph ;)

Patrik Johansson · 4 months ago

Adam, I'm not quite sure I got this right, "seeming readiness". But do you mean that Europeans are willing to pay? Hmm...well, I can't talk for Europe here. But in Sweden it's the opposite I think. People here still need some time before they trust the system with paying over the internet, paying for services etc. I hope, though, that they will pay for Spotify. I don't know anyone who does that unfortunately.

Adam Lasnik · 4 months ago

Really? Ah, then my perception was off. It was my understanding that many people in Europe were already paying for Spotify. But perhaps all the adulation is specifically about Spotify's free version. So if Spotify went all-fee (no more free), would it completely cease to be a media darling and cease to be loved by so much of Europe then?

Jer White · 4 months ago

Spotify are conspicuously silent about their premium sign-up rates, but the rumors are that it's only a few percent of total users currently. Of course, this will change when the mobile versions arrive. I don't believe Spotify will ever be "all-fee" as the freemium version is needed to bring in advertising revenue and to hook new listeners.

Martin Lindeskog · 4 months ago

I received an invitation some time ago and I have been using the service on a regular basis. It is great sound quality and you get music recommendations along the way. We have to talk about synth & electronica music later on... :) All the Best, Martin Lindeskog - American in spirit, Gothenburg, Sweden.

Björn Lindborg · 4 months ago

Interesting read! I was at the stage you are in today more than two years ago when I got my spotify beta version. What amazes me the most is that it has taken so long time to get here, also I'm surprised that in 2 years no competitor has shown up. The big queston of course is will spotify survive, they pay the music rights holders a lot, everytime I listen to a song spotify currently loose money, venture capital is yet again feeding record companies. unless the music industry chage their models spotify will not survive long term

Hindi Song Lyrics · 1 month ago

hi,

i am using Spotify also. I really like their features too. Spotify are now using by more people

because of the good feedback and reviews of the tool.