Spotify blows me away!

Published on Wednesday, September 5th, 2007

I completely missed the train this spring when betas for Spotify were given to a very select few, but the other day my brother had seen the service and was blown away! He called me and told me about it, so I just had to check into it too.

Vaguely remembering the name of the service and that some other people had mentioned it in passing to me before, I looked for all the information I had. It turned out that I had meet the CTO of Spotify at a Geek Meet (I remembered him but not where he was working), so I e-mailed him, practically begging for a beta invite. Being the nice guy that he is, he let me in, and man, am I grateful for that!

What is it then?

Spotify will, if it continues to deliver such a great experience as it currently does, revolutionize the way we access and listen to music! It’s like Joost but for music, with outstanding performance and without the stupid geographic restrictions the video service has.

Basically, it’s an iTunes-like interface where you can listen to radio adapted to what decade and music type your like, or, and this is what really blows me away, search for any song or artist you want to hear, and it is immediately streamed to you! Then you can also create playlists of any songs you like.

Just imagine the power of having any music you want to listen to just by your fingertips, without the need of transferring it to each and every computer where you want to listen to it. Imagine having all the music you ever owned, and more, available to you at any computer or location. Amazing!

Eh… How much does this cost?

Nothing! In the long run, it is supposed to be ad-sponsored in the most unobtrusive way. If they can succeed with doing this in a decent manner, there’s no end to the possibilities. Really!

I must say that this is the product with the best potential I’ve seen for a long time (hell, maybe the best software product I’ve ever seen), and if they don’t screw this up, I’m thoroughly convinced that they will change the way the world consumes music.

Keep your eyes on this!

Posted in Music, Reviews/tests, Technology | 17 comments

17 comments

  • Scott Powers
    September 6th, 2007 at 1:48

    How broad is the listener base expected to be?

    I listen to a good bit of electronica music… so if I happen to search for some obscure tune that the mainstream audience wouldn’t normally search for.. will it come through? Or does it look like it’s going to be focused mostly on a mainstream audience?

    For instance… GTR - Mistral

    Sample tune… I keep last.fm on nearly all the time because they have no problem finding and streaming those tunes that you just don’t hear on mainstream radio.

    Sounds like a great piece of software if it caters to a wide enough listener base.

  • josue Salazar
    September 6th, 2007 at 2:54

    It looks like an awesome service indeed, if you have an invite hook me up man! :)

  • Steven Clark
    September 6th, 2007 at 5:05

    Just wondering how their licensing model works - early in the year Pandora had to stop providing content to users outside the United States…

    but it sounds good and I have a decent need for such an application at the moment.

  • Chris
    September 6th, 2007 at 9:05

    Yes I wonder too about their licencing model…

    I also know Deezer where you can listen to nearly any music you want and that is currently financed by advertizing.

    I think copyrights are currently being revolutionized.

  • HUNCH » Archive » We have let Spotify out of it’s cage
    September 6th, 2007 at 16:38

    [...] Henrik Torstensson - Spotify - En Första titt Kribba: The Blog - Spotify Is The Sh*t Beta Alfa - Spotify — kärlek vid första öronkastet Månhus - Revansch på Pricken efter 15 år Eric Wahlforss - OMG Spotify! Sriram Kroshnan - Spotify: The revolution has started blog@osd.se - Spotify Alarm:Clock Euro - Former Tradedoublers Create Spotify Anek.com - Spotify, nästan lika bra som Freestyle lk9 - Joining the buzz Dyngan - Bolånsrock vs. bloggpop Lillbra - Spotify mäkta populär Emerge - Spotify: Sveriges nya musikexport Friendly Bit - Spotify is a lot like… Björn Fant - Spotify Top 5 features Mymarkup.net - Et in Spotify ego Viktors Mobile Blog - Spotify is the Next Big Thing Henriks Blog - I got Spotified! Ahlund.se - Spotified Des - I am Spotified blog@osd.se - Spotify for real Gooh Bah - Spotify (sv) Dougremer - Spotify my life! (sv) Kribba: The Blog - I can has Spotify? (sv) Livet på Ölandsgatan - Underbara Spotify (sv) Meh - Spotify för mac, vilken tajming (sv) Ogo - Spotify-ekosystemet? (sv) Henriks blogg - Spotify - årets applikation? (sv) AllAndNothing - BB King (sv) Walter Naeslund - Jag har sett ljudet i tunneln (sv) Johan i Stockholm - Spotify (sv) Dist - Spotify (sv) Robert´s talk - Spotify blows me away! [...]

  • Milo
    September 6th, 2007 at 19:01

    Sounds like FineTune, only different.

  • Robert Nyman - author
    September 6th, 2007 at 21:17

    Scott,

    I can’t really say, but from what I understand it will be as brad as possible, and far from just mainstream. I found GTR, but not sure it was exactly what you wanted.

    josue,

    I’m very sorry, but I have no invites whatsoever. Please sign up for updates at their web site, and hopefully you will get an invite in due time.

    Steven,

    It would be really sad if that happens to Spotify. Hopefully, we won’t have to see something like that.

    Chris,

    I haven’t tested Deezer, but it seems like it’s only web browser-based. Spotify is an application you install, and the performance is absolutely fantastic.

    I think copyrights are currently being revolutionized.

    Most definitely! I’m very glad that you wrote that, because the ones who do understand that and adapt now will survive, and the other ones will be gone, sooner or later.

    Milo,

    FineTune seems web browser-based, but yes, in some sense similar.

  • Geek Meet November 2007 - Robert’s talk
    October 8th, 2007 at 13:46

    [...] see this presentation since it’s one of the best services I’ve seen (you can also read my review/take on Spotify)! Andreas also writes at his own web site Pieces of My [...]

  • Pierro
    November 23rd, 2007 at 0:23

    Howdy;
    sounds sooo greate, if you have the option;
    please, put me on your waitinglist for a invite . ..
    thanks so far and greetings from germany

  • Robert Nyman - author
    November 23rd, 2007 at 9:59

    Pierro,

    I’m sorry, but I can’t do that. You need to sign up at the Spotify web site for that.

  • q-biq
    November 25th, 2007 at 1:19

    would love to get a invite.. mikael@norrfors.se

  • Robert Nyman - author
    November 26th, 2007 at 13:12

    q-big,

    As stated above, you need to contact Spotify for that.

  • Mikael Norrfors
    December 30th, 2007 at 11:33

    Yeh it worked out, got my account now.

  • Andy
    January 20th, 2008 at 19:11

    Is this going to be compatible with Mac? Also, I am a daily user of Pandora and Deezer, and I look forward to this next step in thinking related to technology and copyright limitations. However, I have recently started looking for a good TV website or application. I am aware of Hulu.com, but the selection isn’t quite satisfying. Do you have wind of anything revolutionary coming in the video/tv genre, possibly something that could eventually replace satellite and cable services(Mac compatible)? Or has that already been accomplished?

  • Robert Nyman - author
    January 21st, 2008 at 15:18

    Mikael,

    Good!

    Andy,

    Spotify is indeed Mac-compatible. For video and TV, Joost might be something for you.

  • The Equity Kicker » Blog Archive » Future of the music industry
    January 29th, 2008 at 15:21

    [...] direction.  As well as LastFM there is QTrax, We7 and Spotify, which some are describing as the Joost of music. _uacct = “UA-1180157-1″; [...]

  • Ivy
    April 30th, 2008 at 10:46

    Hey Folks,

    Don’t want to spam you, but if you have great playlists in Spotify and want to share them with other Spotify users, POP over to spotifyfriends.com!

Share your thoughts:

HTML: You can use these tags: <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <strike> <strong> . If you want to display code examples, please remember to write &lt; for < and &gt; for >.

Comment preview

Top results