Spotify

[derspiess]

So after hearing about the awesomeness of Spotify for years (felt like years anyway) I jumped in on the U.S. beta last week.  I need another music service like I need another hole in my head, but I had to find out what was so awesome about this service that would make me forget all others. 

Not bothering to read much about the different membership levels, I went ahead & chose "unlimited" for $5/mo.  Little did I know this only meant unlimited (i.e., not capped at 25 hours) listening using the desktop application.  You can use the mobile app for *searching* their catalog, but you can't stream to your phone using that app unless you have their $10/mo. "premium" subscription level.  No thanks.  I went ahead & cancelled my "unlimited" subscription just so I wouldn't forget to cancel it a month from now.

The catalog looks pretty good, but  I don't get what is so awesome about the service, unless the Euro version is more generous.  I heard people excited about using this along with iTunes or to replace iTunes, so maybe there's something there for iTunes users.  But this was supposed to kill Pandora??   

For $15 a month my ZunePass lets me stream the entire Zune catalog of music to my PC, Zune devices, and Xbox 360 (really nice interface, to boot) and I get to pick 10 songs each month to keep.  I can download to my PC and Zunes as well.  Only thing missing in that equation is an Android Zune app (which I won't see in the near future because it's being used as a main selling point for Windows Phone 7).

I also use Google Music, which lets me upload pretty much all my music to their servers and stream it to my phone or other PC-- for free (for now). 

Amazon MP3 does the same for free-- even though they cap me at 25GB, I keep their app on my phone because their MP3 store is good for deals on albums or for impulse-buying when I'm out and don't have my Zune with me.

And finally, Pandora still comes in handy and beats them all when it comes to discovering new music based on my tastes/listening habits.  It's also el freebo, but I did the premium subscription thing mostly to thank them for  all the free music I've consumed since they were in beta.

But anyway, getting back to Spotify, do you Euros use it, or has anyone in the US found something in the service that I'm missing??

[Grey Fox]

So Many services. Lucky Americans.

[mongers]

.....

But anyway, getting back to Spotify, do you Euros use it, or has anyone in the US found something in the service that I'm missing??

I signed up for the original UK beta, it was ok, but haven't fired it up in months and months, iirc there just wasn't enough of the music I like; guess I tend to like obscure music, just ask Joseph...

just checked, of the bands I like:

Gentle Giant - 4 out of 12 core/studio
Hawkwind - some missing
King Crimson - None
Rush - all albums
Kate Bush - all albums
AC/DC - None
Deep Purple - Almost all.
The Pentangle - Almost all.
Led Zeppelin - None
Shakira - most.
John Martyn - almost all
Paul Brady - 12 out of 14.
Queen - all albums
The Reasoning 3 of 4.
Motorhead - almost all.
Alquin - 2 of 8
Van Halen - almost all
Focus -  most.
Black Sabbath - all

to name but a few.

[Josephus]

So Many services. Lucky Americans.

Yeah. We have nothing. 

[Grey Fox]

So Many services. Lucky Americans.

Yeah. We have nothing. 

Except Last.fm

[Josquius]

It was awesome, I used to love it back in the day.
Then they changed it so you could only listen to each song 5 times. Gah.
I hardly bother it these days.

[Ed Anger]

So Many services. Lucky Americans.

Yeah. We have nothing. 

HA HA!

[The Minsky Moment]

ZunePass is fine and dandy, but it really limits your use of portable devices.

I use rhapsody and pandora.  Pandora does what it does pretty well and I don't know of a competing service that fills that niche better.  Rhapsody I've had for quite a while and thus I am soft locked-in because I have saved so much music to my library it would be a pain to reconstitute.  I would need a real reason to move and it doesn't seem that spotify has a killer feature that would justify it.  Spotify does offer higher streaming quality at least under some iterations but mostly I tend to use these services in portable players in places where there is ambient noise.

[derspiess]

ZunePass is fine and dandy, but it really limits your use of portable devices.

If MS ever decided to play nice & put out a Zune app for Android, or if some enterprising app developer hacked one together, I'd be completely set.  But it's not the end of the world-- I still use my ZuneHD and Zune 120 for about 80% of my mobile listening. 

I'll keep using portable media players until some miracle breakthrough in smartphone battery technology takes place.

[mongers]

ZunePass is fine and dandy, but it really limits your use of portable devices.

If MS ever decided to play nice & put out a Zune app for Android, or if some enterprising app developer hacked one together, I'd be completely set.  But it's not the end of the world-- I still use my ZuneHD and Zune 120 for about 80% of my mobile listening. 

I'll keep using portable media players until some miracle breakthrough in smartphone battery technology takes place.

I've got to agree, I use tiny creative or sandisk mp3 players when I'm out and about, this seems to save no end of phone battery charge, plus I have the option of being able to swap out the little AAA batteries if I want to play music or the radio for longer, an option I don't have with a cellphone.

[Josephus]

So Many services. Lucky Americans.

Yeah. We have nothing. 

Except Last.fm

Last fm is not the same thing though. In Canada, you can only play the songs that exist in your library. Whichis pointless, since they're already on my compter!

[derspiess]

I've got to agree, I use tiny creative or sandisk mp3 players when I'm out and about, this seems to save no end of phone battery charge, plus I have the option of being able to swap out the little AAA batteries if I want to play music or the radio for longer, an option I don't have with a cellphone.

I can actually swap batteries on my phone pretty easily, but with heavy use in certain situations I might end up going through three different batteries in a day.   The generic batteries I use are cheap (and surprisingly perform just as well as the OEM battery), and I have an external charger for them, but it's still annoying having to power down my phone and swap the battery.