The ability to sync your Spotify music to your iPod/iPhone/Android phone has just been extended to Spotify free users. However, users of Free Spotify won't be able to stream their music on their iPods - they'll just be able to transfer tracks they've already bought.
Announced today on the Spotify blog , the company explained:
"As of today, everyone can download the Spotify Mobile iPhone & Android apps to wirelessly sync your MP3 playlists in Spotify from your computer to your phone. Fire up your mobile app and see your phone appear in the 'Devices' section of the Spotify sidebar, ready to rock and roll. No cables required! And did we mention it's now possible to wirelessly sync these playlists to your iPod touch?"
The change makes it more worthwhile for people to buy tracks on Spotify, but it's not a very significant alteration to the service.
As blog commenter sdg pointed out: "Premium is still the only way to get music that you don't own to your mobile devices. This new free addition is just for MP3s people have bought."
It does show however that the music service is actively pushing its users towards spending money on the site, encourage them to buy the music they usually listen to for free. Spotify offer 50p a song bundles as well.
In reality the change is small one, but it's been billed as an aggressive move against iTunes, with the Guardian describing it as a "rival". We'll explore this in another blog post.
Music streaming service Spotify has just been valued at $1 billion according to Sky News. Facebook backers DST and Kleiner Perkins are two of the big investors willing to bet that that sum is accurate and put their money behind the service.
Founded in Sweden in October 2008, Spotify offers a free music streaming service supported by ads or a subscription service letting people stream or store music on apps on their computers or mobile phones. Integration with Facebook has allowed users to share music and collaborate on playlists.
From personal experience, it has been one of my favourite web services of the past few years.
When it comes to music streaming services, the market is certainly becoming somewhat crowded. Spotify is probably the most intimidating major player out there, but could American streaming MOG.com, soon to launch in the UK, be the one to watch out for?
Launched in December 2009, MOG is a relatively new online music service which is currently only available in the US and lets you listen instantly to music directly from your computer's web browser. With a catalogue of over 8 million songs legally obtained from every major music label and thousands of lesser known indie labels, you can easily tailor your music listening experience exactly to your taste. It also has a radio feature, which allows you to either listen to one artist or a mixture of artists whose music is a similar style or genre as the artist you've already chosen.
Sounds a little like Spotify right? Well, no as firstly MOG is entirely web-based meaning that you don't have to download the service. Perhaps the distinct difference however is that MOG doesn't have an ad-funded service and instead is planning on providing consumers a free taster and allow them to use the service for free for a few days with the hope that they will become hooked and subscribe. MOG also features blogs, news and features sections, making it more geared towards discovering new music and artists than Spotify and thus providing a richer entertainment experience.
When launched in the UK which is rumoured to be at the end of summer this year, MOG's CEO David Hyman is intent on offering a cheaper subscription price than that of Spotify which is £10 per month. The MOG subscription price is likely to be around £5 per month and the service will also be iPhone and Android compatible though the subscription for this upgrade will increase to approximately £10 per month.
While we hope you haven't exactly been holding your breath, the good news is that online music service Rdio - which you may have heard about way back in 2009 - has finally arrived. Well, in the US, anyway. But according to their blog this Spotify rival will be available in other parts of the world 'soon'.
Rdio is the brainchild of Niklas Zennstrom and Janus Friis, the pair who created the controversial file-sharing service Kazaa and later redeemed themselves (and paid the legal bills, presumably) with Skype. For a monthly charge, users can access a catalogue of major label music, streaming or saving their favourite tracks to PCs, iPhones and Blackberrys. Don't panic if you're an Android user - word on the street is that an app is on its way for you, too.
$9.99 will get you Rdio Unlimited, giving you both web and mobile usage, while a $4.99 gets you the web-only Rdio Web package. A caching feature means you'll be able to store music on your mobile without blowing the 3G budget, and with Warner Music Group backing the service we guess you could soon be listening to anyone from The Doors to Red Hot Chilli Peppers on or offline. (Unfortunately, Michael Buble is probably an option, too.) There are also suggestions that EMI and indies Orchard and INgrooves could soon be a part of the Rdio package.
Rdio's competitors are likely to be Rhapsody, Napster and the lesser known Mog All Access. And of course Spotify when it launches Stateside. But, with all eyes - and ears - on Spotify in the UK, what can Rdio really do to recommend itself to the discerning British listener? Well, it seems that this music service will include several social elements. So you'll be able to follow friends and find out what they're listening, and hijack other people's playlists when you're lacking inspiration. This does however mean you'll have to give up that filthy Nickelback habit.
Will you be tuning in to Rdio when it touches down in the UK? Or, in the time they've taken to get up and running, has Spotify already won your heart?
Spotify has temporarily stopped installations of their app as demand rocketed following the updates to the service announced yesterday.
Everyone with a Spotify account will get the new version of Spotify rolled out to them, but might have to wait for a few days.
Some users worked out that by logging out and reinstalling the Spotify app they could upgrade to the latest version without having to wait for the roll-out. You can't do that any more. However if you decide to sign up to the premium service now, you'll get the full bells and whistles versions instantly.
"We're delighted to say that the demand for the next generation of Spotify has been overwhelming and in order to ensure that our systems can handle the additional usage we're going to need to keep the roll out of the new version in check.
"Users will be automatically updated in the coming days. Currently, trying to download the new version directly from our website, or restarting Spotify, will not provide you with the latest upgrade. Please bear with us and thank you once again for your patience :)"
These days it seems like all web services can be improved by getting Facebook functionality plugged into them. Of course it's terrifying because Facebook is taking over the internet, and hoarding vast amounts of personal information about about all our banal little lives. But it is also great. In the case of Spotify's greater integration with Facebook (and Twitter) launched today, it makes the music streaming service a lot more engaging and fun. Sitting at your laptop with headphones on listening to metal has just become a potential source of social interaction as opposed to a way of cutting it off.
"Music is social" says Spotify's promo video - and they're kind of right.
I do love Spotify. As webservices go it is up there with gmail, twitter and facebook as one of my top four. Free Spotify is unfortuntately limited - you need an invite to join now. Premium Spotify is £9.99 a month.
But is this overhaul as good as it is built up to be? does it actually make a difference to the average Spotify session?
1 Being able to share songs and playlists on Facebook:
This is great fun. The previous mechanism for sharing playlists was popular but kind of clunky and a little complicated. With Facebook it's dead simple and much easier to get your friends' playlists. The interface is well designed and sharing is a one button click, then a question of signing in on Facebook. Great.
The downside: not all my friends have Spotify and till they do, the links on my page are useless to them. I can see it getting annoying on FB too if profile pages are taken up with everyone sharing songs that only a limited number of people can access.
Like? YES. At the risk of sounding like a PR robot: Music is Social. I don't think I'll be spamming facebook loads but for playlists, this is a good idea.
2 The Spotify Music Profile
This creates a little profile for you on Spotify pulling in a name and picture from your Facebook profile and adding your top tracks, top artists (think these are only from recent months) and your playlists. All are public by default but the list is editable so you can take off the embarassing Avril Lavigne playlist and make sure only the presentable ones are visible to your friends on Spotify.
Like? YES, though I wish the default was private.
3 Personalised Sharing
This lets you drag and drop individual songs or playlists onto your friends' profiles. I haven't used that yet - but could see it being a fun way to interact with people on Spotify itself. You can also do things like see who else has subscribed to the same playlist as you and click through to their spotify and then Facebook profile.
Like? yes cool.
4 Mobile to Spotify
This is only of use if you have the Premium service which only 320,000 of Spotify's 7 million users do. I don't. It lets you wirelessly sync your phone's Spotify app with your PC allowing you to copy your music files to your mobile.
Like? personally i'm a meh on this one, could see others liking it.
5 The Library
Collects all tracks that you have starred, imported, bought or included in one big list and also upload smusic from your computer's own media collections to Spotify. That's good, but doesn't wow me. That music was 95% on Spotify anyway, but it does mean that I'll be using Spotify as my almost unique music player.
Like? again yeah sure, not a wow development, but interesting.
OVERALL:
I think adding that social element to Spotify makes an already great service a bit more fun and engaging. Good move. But it does show up the disjunction between the number of Facebook friends I have and the number of them who have Spotify, to my non-Spotify-ennabled friends, I am basically spamming their facebook walls with ads for paid service. (This is a plea to Spotify to re-open registration to their free service.)
This will be particularly good for small websites and blogs who will be able to share playlists easily with fans (again, providing those fans have spotify) and can also embed links to their Spotify profiles on their website.
In the largest feature upgrade since the Spotify launch in late 2008, the music streaming and purchasing service has add a host of social features linking Spotify more closely to Facebook.
At the heart is a fully editable Spotify music profile, with the ability to publish playlists, top artists and top tracks for public view. These profiles plug into Facebook's social network - letting you find your friends.
The public part is editable which means you don't need to publish your embarrassing 90s cheese list to the world but can add your carefully selected playlists. You can also upload Spotify profiles to blogs and other websites.
It's easy to share music with friends - drag and drop tracks onto their name. A Facebook feed on the home page will show you music your friends have posted on Spotify.
Apart from the social integration there are some library features too which let you upload music from your computer to Spotify so you can listen to it there - making Spotify the main go-to music player for most people.
The changes are rolling out over the next few days so may not be visible yet.
Spotify launched in October 2008 and now has 7m users, though only 320,000 pay the £9.99 monthly subscription to access the ad-free, premium version of the service.
Spotify is one of those services, that from the day you download, unpack and install it you use it constantly. What suited types call a "game-changer". And they're right.
Spotify is a service that most people will use for months without really thinking about it, without exploring it's amazing and various tricks.
So I thought I'd try and show you what's out there to make your Spotify experience better.
1. Shortcuts. How about the interface itself? As a hardened Spotify user, you'll want to know the shortcuts.
Well here they are. Windows / Mac
Volume up: Control-Up / Command-Up Volume down: Control-Down / Command-Down Mute: Control-Shift-Down / Command-Shift-Down Next song: Control-Right / Control-Command-Right Previous song: Control-Left / Control-Command-Left New playlist: Control-N / Command-N Cursor to the search box: Control-L / Command-L Play and pause: Spacebar / Back: Alt-Left / Command-[ Forward: Alt-Right / Command-] Logout: Control-Shift-W / Command-Shift-W
2. Clever search. Your can search by year like this, year:1992 you then get the most popular songs from that year. The top three for 1992, if you're interested are Under The Bridge -- Red Hot Chili Peppers, Killing In The Name Of -- RATM, Bed Of Roses -- Bon Jovi.
You can also search genre like this, genre:funk and you can mix them up like this genre:funk year:1992. Seemingly, 1992 wasn't a good year for funk, but when has there been a good year for funk?
3. Share via your social networks. Those kind sorts at Spotify wiggled this little feature in without much ceremony. But right click on songs or playlists now, and under Share to you'll find options to share directly to your Facebook, Twitter or Delicious accounts. Neat right? I had a friend who was still copying and pasting the http link, what a shmuck!
4. Spotify URLs. They are long cumbersome motherlovers. And we all love a good short URL, we can tweet them easier can't we? And we love Tweeting stuff. Sadly not everyone has Spotify, so it's kind of harsh to mock them with a link to a playlist they can't get to. A real nice way to warn people that the link they're about to hit is a Spotify one is using a Spotify centred URL shortening service.
If they can't tell this http://spo.tl/zNul3 is a Spotify link, then that's there problem, you've done everything you could do. The results are prettier too.
5. Share. There are lots of cool sites to share your playlist magic, here are five:
6. Party playlists. Because the iTunes Genius function is about as much of a genius as a particularly slow cabbage -- why does it love The Smiths so much? What is that? Does anyone else know where I'm coming from? Anyway, yeah -- so you've got a party coming up. And obviously your friends are pretty serious about they're music what with them being dead cool, (obviously, they're your friends) they're going to want good music. So you throw it open give everyone three vetos and watch the list take shape. Note: If Sledgehammer by Peter Gabriel doesn't make the list at some point you're doing it wrong.
7. Link to a particular time in a song. When pasting a URI just add #02:69 and it'll jump to 2.69 time in the song, useful for showing people when Celine Dion says "hot dogs" in that Titanic song. Oh go on then. Or for better reasons like this, the greatest, simplest drum fill ever. (Note: Clicking this link will open Spotify... eventually)
8. Drag and drop. We all know you can copy and paste the http link, but did you know you can simply drag and drop playlists, songs, and albums straight into most instant messengers, email clients and URL shorteners. Check that.
9. Add-ons. There are quite a few Spotify add-ons appearing these days. My favourite is Spotify Search for Firefox, highlight a band's name in the text of a webpage, right click, and all of sudden search Spotify is an option. Lets face it, highlighting cmd-c, cmd-shift, cmd-v -- that's a bit too much like work.
10. Get playlist happy. More and more music blogs and networks are utilising Spotify to get music out to the masses. DiS's Spotifriday, for example, is a weekly Spotify list really gathering pace. They're out there. Let's go find them and listen to them until our ears fall off! Who's with me? Whoot!
Virgin Media is squaring up to web services like iTunes and Spotify with a music streaming and download service called MusicFish. Due to launch this summer, the service will work along the lines of premium Spotify deals.
It is suggested that Virgin will charge a certain amount a month for access to the service which would include unlimited ad-free online streaming and mp3 downloads of songs (not sure what the limit on downloads is). The monthly price will be released closer to the launch but we imagine it will be somewhere near the Spotify Premium fee of £9.99.
They have already signed a deal with Universal, and hope to close talks with EMI, Sony and Warner to get as full a catalogue of songs as possible.
With sales of CDs falling and music shops closing down, it makes sense for Virgin to move into digital streaming and sales.
My only question: where does the Fish come from? I know Spotify is a slightly silly name when you think about it... but "Musicfish"? It sounds like a children's TV character. I suppose the "user-fish" swimns around in the music stream, but I reserve the right to find it all slightly comical.
Last.fm has been a bit quiet recently as Spotify corners the online music streaming. However cute little apps like this Fantasy Festival from Sony could bring a bit of life back into the site - still a hangout for music purists and adventurers.
Sony's Fantasy Festival combines music with the slightly nerdy attraction of the Fantasy Football idea and lets you curate a 15 band strong music festival on a certain budget. Obviously the weird little thrash-indie band your friend is in is cheaper than Beyonce.
The most popular festivals get little weekly prizes - some darn serious headphones... and the most popular festival of all gets four free tickets to "secret amazing European festival". More informatioin on Prizes here.
You can also create festival leagues - according to genre... and add your friends' line-ups to your league.
It's quite simple and fun to do - like making a playlist but slightly more. Then, afterwards you can listen to the playlist of the festival - though being Last.fm that plays lots of bands you didn't include but that are linked to your selections.
Fun thing? Yes. Of course when the social aspect kicks off this would get even more fun. This is the ShinyShinyFEST here: don't judge my taste, but do add some others in..
One of 2009's hottest web services, free music application Spotify is not quite about to take over the world. Though a hit on PCs and smartphones, the service won't be making the transition onto games consoles in the near future.
Rumours that Spotify would be incorporated into the Xbox 360 and PS3 were squashed by Spotify earlier this week. A Spotify representative has released a statement calling any such plans merely "anonymous rumours".
"We've always said that we want to be on as many devices as possible so that we can bring music to wherever are users are, but there's no truth to these anonymous rumours about Spotify coming to game consoles any time soon," said the Spotify rep.
Last week the service moved onto Symbian devices, it's already an iPhone and Android app for premium users.
There's a lot of talk at the moment about how Spotify might run out of money thereby depriving online music lovers of probably the best service ever.
Of course if a large number of its freebie users paid for the service, then it would make money. So if the free service is canned are you prepared to pay?
The ability to sync your Spotify music to your iPod/iPhone/Android phone has just been extended to Spotify free users. However, users of Free Spotify won't be able to stream their music on their iPods - they'll just be able to transfer tracks they've already bought.
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