Spotify is a streaming service, which lets fans listen to more than three
million tracks legally and for “free”, it has more than a million
users in the UK already. The system has 3 packages on offer, starting with “Free” (showing ads between songs), a Day Pass £0.99 (ad free) for 24hrs and a Premium Subscription for £9.99. All 3 packages give you the ability to:
- Search – Find and browse by artist, title, album, genre, year
- Specify your own radio channel based on genre, year and artist
- Share - Create, share and collaborate on play lists and share links to music
The Premium package also comes with exclusive access to pre-releases and concert ticket lotteries.
The company plans to expand it’s service to the mobile market and beyond the UK. They also expect to announce a deal with fellow streaming
site Last.fm to provide song recommendations, making it easier for fans
to find acts they like.
Spotify can be downloaded from http://www.spotify.com and currently works on Mac and Windows, and there’s a tutorial on their site on how to run it on Linux using Wine. Again a company wanting to go global has started by cutting corners with the Linux community, an easy but unforgivable mistake to make.
