http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2009/08/spotify-50-million-closer-to-us-launch/
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Spotify
- Thread starter Michaelgtrusa
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Spotify will be in the US soon enough. Supposedly the recorld labels are looking to buy a stake in the company. Right now I won't get the iPhone app. The pro account is too expensive.
Cinder6
macrumors 6502a
Hopefully "buy a stake" doesn't mean "try to interfere with business", as they'd run it to the ground.
Their was a spotify in the states on twitter that had it's account suspended due to suspicious activity.
I've been using Spotify with free account few days, and I love it. Some people say that they don't want to rent their music, but in my opinion, Spotify is more like music listening service (it's not like those crappy DRM'd music files which expired if you didn't renew your license). It's not like internet radio either, because it works just like iTunes' personal music library, except that the tracks are streamed and not played from hard drive).
For me it's a great service, because I like a lots of music styles and artists, but I'm willing to buy only small slice of music I'd like to listen. Although I really like Spotify, I'm not ready to pay for the premium account... 9,99 euros is a little bit too much. Well, maybe later I'm ready to pay that price, if the service can be used with iPhone too 🙂
For me it's a great service, because I like a lots of music styles and artists, but I'm willing to buy only small slice of music I'd like to listen. Although I really like Spotify, I'm not ready to pay for the premium account... 9,99 euros is a little bit too much. Well, maybe later I'm ready to pay that price, if the service can be used with iPhone too 🙂
iBlue
macrumors Core
I think Spotify is really useful. I often check things out on it to decide if it's something I want to buy, or just because I felt like listening to…whatever. They are missing many artists and albums but I think it has a lot of promising potential.
The free version is a lot like on-demand radio. You do have to listen to ads every so often but you do get to choose what you want to listen to in exchange for that.
The free version is a lot like on-demand radio. You do have to listen to ads every so often but you do get to choose what you want to listen to in exchange for that.
Have been using the free account for quite some time now. It's a great program, but there are few things that don't work well in it.
For example the Radio is often playing stuff that would in no way fit in that category. Since when is Eric Clapton considered Heavy Metal? I mean I suppose you could stretch Clapton in his Cream days to that category but Clapton as a solo artist is definitely not metal.
Having the play, next track etc controls in the bottom hampers usability because everything else is usually at the top.
I don't like how the search results are shown. Usually you search for a band so it's annoying to have a results screen showing all the band's songs in random order when it really should've just gone to the band's "page" with the neat album listing etc.
The ads are generally poorly done. The ones that advertise a Spotify feature get grating soon because they only have one version and they play those often. The non-Spotify ads are often really annoying, my least favorite ones are the Right Livelihood award ad that sounds like it was recorded at a cocktail party (you can hear people talking and glasses clinking in the background) or the Amy McDonald album ad because she has an annoying voice. The ads are also not relevant to your listening preferences - it's a bit pointless to advertise the new Shakira album when you're listening to Norwegian black metal or something.
In any case I do like Spotify and hope it lives long and gets popular because this kind of service is really great to have. It would be nice if they also did a version that works in a web browser because then I could really quickly search for songs via Firefox bookmark keywords.
For example the Radio is often playing stuff that would in no way fit in that category. Since when is Eric Clapton considered Heavy Metal? I mean I suppose you could stretch Clapton in his Cream days to that category but Clapton as a solo artist is definitely not metal.
Having the play, next track etc controls in the bottom hampers usability because everything else is usually at the top.
I don't like how the search results are shown. Usually you search for a band so it's annoying to have a results screen showing all the band's songs in random order when it really should've just gone to the band's "page" with the neat album listing etc.
The ads are generally poorly done. The ones that advertise a Spotify feature get grating soon because they only have one version and they play those often. The non-Spotify ads are often really annoying, my least favorite ones are the Right Livelihood award ad that sounds like it was recorded at a cocktail party (you can hear people talking and glasses clinking in the background) or the Amy McDonald album ad because she has an annoying voice. The ads are also not relevant to your listening preferences - it's a bit pointless to advertise the new Shakira album when you're listening to Norwegian black metal or something.
In any case I do like Spotify and hope it lives long and gets popular because this kind of service is really great to have. It would be nice if they also did a version that works in a web browser because then I could really quickly search for songs via Firefox bookmark keywords.
I agree with you about the controls on the bottom. I guess the interface is designed to be more about playlists and not so much about controlling one song. I would however move all the controls from the bottom to the top and combine the search bar to that control bar (the song lenght slider doesn't have to be that long).
I'm annoyed about repeating same adds over and over again. I have nothing against adds when I get the service for free, but I'd like to hear more than 5 different adds. I hope they get more advertisers 🙂