Spotify - anyone heard of it?

http://www.spotify.com/int/coming-to-the-us/

Signed up for an invite already :)

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/entertainmentnewsbuzz/2011/07/spotify-buttons-up-deals-with-warner-launches-music-service-in-the-us-.html

Spotify, a popular European music service with ambitions to dominate the U.S. digital music market, said it has buttoned up the necessary licenses with major record labels to launch its service in America on Thursday...

Spotify's offerings will be largely similar to what it has in Europe, namely a free service supported by advertising and two premium tiers that let users listen without ads on computers and on mobile devices.

The free tier will let new users listen to the company's catalog of more than 15 million songs from a computer connection for six months. After that, users will be capped at 10 hours a month and up to five spins for any particular song.

"You can still discover as much music as you want up to your heart’s content" even with the limits, said Ken Parks, Spotify's chief content officer and managing director of the company's North American business.

Subscribers who pay $4.99 a month can access the service without ads or limitations from a computer connection. A $9.99 tier also lets users listen to the service from a smart phone such as an iPhone, Android, Palm or Windows 7 device.

Yep it's official - US launch is today at 8:00am EST. $9.99 tier will also have higher bit rates.

Hopefully they have similar track selection to the UK and an identical policy about using abroad. I've been using the UK version in the US, but would be happy to switch from paying in £s to $s.

Interested. I still can't stand the name or look of it. I suppose I should judge by the catalog but if the experience doesn't appeal to me, I'll bail. Good thing you can try it for free.

can't recommend it enough. it's changed the way people listen to music over here much more than anything like Napster or any P2P thing or whatever and in many different ways that i would never have imagined when it launched.

listening to gold cobra as my inaugural stream

current users can invite ppl, right? that's what CNN claims

xpost -- Read that as 'inaugural steam'

can't recommend it enough. it's changed the way people listen to music over here much more than anything like Napster or any P2P thing or whatever and in many different ways that i would never have imagined when it launched.

― piscesx, Thursday, 14 July 2011 13:24 (1 hour ago) Bookmark

i feel like this is hyperbole tbh

Nope, it's perfectly true.

xxxpost If this is true then if anyone wants an invite drop me a line at billy (dot) dods (at) gmail.com and I'll try to help.

current users can invite ppl, right? that's what CNN claims

Happy to send invites to people if you give me yr email, dunno if my UK invites will work for you though

ha xp

hmm the UK invite didn't get me into the free tier so I created a pay account anyway, lol

was gonna advise you skip the free stage anyway. get it on your iphone and never look back.

It's worth it imo, the free 10 hours just whizzes by

Ed, check your email again.

Nope, it's perfectly true.

no but seriously, an entire generation already stopped buying cds

technologies that had more impact, probably in order:

the ipod;
youtube;
itunes;
first-and-second-gen p2p

I'm in thx mang

spotify is on the same importance level as those things imo, and it beats them all from a useability pov

At least for now, you can get an invite just by giving Spotify your email address (which I did earlier when they were advertising the impending US launch) but I still haven't heard from them. Do they respond faster if the invite comes from a current Spotify user, and can that be from someone in the UK/Europe?

try this link https://www.spotify.com/redirect/get-open/rec-en/

spotify at least changed the way people dj at parties

I think the only way you can in right now is if a current user sends you an invitation code/token

not sure of the cross-continent invites?

my cross-continent invite had no token in it, but that's okay because I = $$$$$

holy hell, one of my college choirs is on Spotify back when I was in it

http://open.spotify.com/album/7zlm5UZLKrrZDEkyZsGSds

xxxp yeah the djing at parties thing is key; any home with a laptop or PC now has an instant mahoosive record collection. the idea that previously at a house party with no official DJ, people just randomly played records or CDs or ipods or their own mp3s or whatever suddenly, recently started to seem a very old fashioned concept indeed. making a playlist in advance that people can then edit/add *almost anything they want to* just seems like the best thing ever.

oh wait I guess billy's in the UK so intercontinental invites work

I've been anticipating this for a few years. I keep putting my e-mail in the pool but nothing has come up yet.

still waiting for this to launch in Ireland

banished by st patrick iirc

lol

So I'm guessing by being away from internet all morning means I'm already too late to get an invite?

Well, so far, I like google+ a whole lot more than Spotify because, well, I can actually fucking use it.

jon try the link i posted upthread

Thanks, I'll give that a shot, looks promising!

I'm 99% sure I'm going to end up paying for this, but I want to give it a test run first before I decide to do so.

don't bother, it's only $5 for the lower tier

The free tier will let new users listen to the company's catalog of more than 15 million songs from a computer connection for six months. After that, users will be capped at 10 hours a month and up to five spins for any particular song.

"You can still discover as much music as you want up to your heart’s content" even with the limits, said Ken Parks, Spotify's chief content officer and managing director of the company's North American business.

Subscribers who pay $4.99 a month can access the service without ads or limitations from a computer connection. A $9.99 tier also lets users listen to the service from a smart phone such as an iPhone, Android, Palm or Windows 7 device.

― Bee OK, Wednesday, July 13, 2011 11:52 PM Bookmark

So let me get this straight -- I pay $10 a month and I can listen to whatever the fuck I want as much as I want?

you can that with the $5 subscription too

$10 adds "on whatever you want"

* head tries to explode but is too confused to explode *

So why does Pandora even exist, exactly?

What's the selection going to be like in the US -- are there lots of limitations?

So why does Pandora even exist, exactly?

because you couldn't get Spotify in the US until today

re: selection, I couldn't find "Hot With Fleas" by Severed Heads on it; so far that has been my only disappointment

jon, if the link doesn't work, drop me a line at the address upthread and I'll send you an invite.

This is the hardest thing to believe since I first found out a woman would sleep with me.

Yeah, I'm really trying not to get over excited here because this seems way too good to be true. My fear is that will be awesome for the first couple of months, then labels will start freaking out and pulling their catalogs.

lol hurting

I found dope body's new album out there, between that and dan's college choir it seems pretty comprehensive

billy says there are voice ads on the UK service but all I've had are popup image ads, all for terrible musicians

Or they'll jack the price way up, more likely imo. I just don't see the economics of this making sense for labels in the long run with free, $5 and $10 subscriptions. I mean I still exchange some money for music sometimes, and with something like this I don't think I would do much of that anymore. (xpost)