Spotify

Spotify is a peer-to-peer music streaming service that was started up in 2006. Funded by subscribers and advertisements, Spotify essentially allows users to access a seemingly endless number of songs. However, since the service works under digital rights management, users are not allowed to keep the songs on their computers unless they purchase the songs or become a paid subscriber to receive offline service. Spotify is currently only available in Sweden, Norway, FInland, France, Spain, and the United Kingdom. There is no official date as of today for when Spotify will expand to serve more countries.

There are three different services on Spotify: Free, Day Pass, and Premium.

Free

Spotify can be used for free if you have an invitation. Invites can be obtained from other Spotify users, as long as those users have any invites left to give. Once you have an invite, simply download and install the Spotify player to begin enjoying your favorite artists. The only downside of the Free service is that advertisements will play occasionally between songs, around every half-hour or so.

Day Pass

Costing only £0.99, the day pass allows anyone with a Spotify account to listen to ad-free music for 24 hours. As with the Free service, you need to have an invitation to make an account in order to purchase the day pass.

Premium

If you cannot obtain an invite but still want to use Spotify, then getting the Premium service can get you access. Spotify's Premium service, costing £9.99 per month, gives subscribers access to music without advertisements and the option to stream at 320kb/s rather than the 160kb/s that non-Premium users stream at. Along with ad-free, hi-fi quality music, premium members have the opportunity to listen to new albums before they're released. Subscribers can also participate in lotteries for concert tickets. Another major advantage of the Premium service is the ability to play your songs offline. You can store up to 3,333 songs to be played in offline mode. Becoming a Premium member also allows you to use Spotify on the iPhone, iPod Touch, or Android mobile device. Combine this with the ability to listen to Spotify anywhere in the world, and you have the ultimate music player in the palm of your hand.

Spotify allows users of any of the three above services to share music with other Spotify users. Simply dragging tracks to emails or instant messages creates a link to the song on Spotify. Also available to all users is the ability to create collaborative playlists, which are managed by more than one user. Spotify can also be accessed from multiple locations. While any user can log in to multiple Spotify players, only one Spotify player per account can be played at a time. Finally, while Spotify does not yet have built-in support for external speakers, there are ways to hook up your Spotify player to play on your favorite sound system, such as the Apple Airport or Logitech Squeezebox.

Review

Spotify is a must-have for any music lover. You can listen to your favorite music and explore and discover new interests. The database is very extensive, and it feels very much like having all the music in the world in one simple application. Although there were a few instances when I couldn't find a song, those moments are trivial when compared to the number of songs I have been able to listen to. I have been using the Free service and have found the sound quality to be great. Music streaming is also quick, with an unnoticeably small load time. Spotify also includes music recommendations, directing you to more of the music you enjoy. Spotify has almost completely replaced all other sources of music, since its library is so vast and easy to navigate.

Try Spotify today and get your music vibes flowing.