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Spotify - Amazing Legal music App

Asked by Johnston,

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Johnston

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I came across www.spotify.com a few days ago, and I must say it's amazing! Been using it ever since, and haven't had a need to open itunes at all. Has pretty much every song I search for, and plays instantly with no buffering or problems etc, for a beta its very good. Anyway, it was invite only but today it's gone public so anyone and everyone can sign up. Give it a go, see what you think, i think it's a new revolution in how we will listen to music in the future.

Here's a review: http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=LQC2eBQ7Lsk

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Grand Master

Shadrack

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Would anyone mind posting some screenshots? Some of us USAers are wondering if going through a proxy to try this thing out is worth the effort. I've got my Zune Pass that works with my hardware, so I doubt it will be worth it. Still, would like to see what the hype is about.

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macf13nd

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Would anyone mind posting some screenshots? Some of us USAers are wondering if going through a proxy to try this thing out is worth the effort. I've got my Zune Pass that works with my hardware, so I doubt it will be worth it. Still, would like to see what the hype is about.

ok no problem:

This is what the screen looks like after a search query is typed:

spot1.JPG

This page takes < 0.3s to load on my 8mbit connection. Feels faster than Google somehow. Not sure quite how that works....

You can click on any song and it will play as quickly as the search results loaded.

Or - when the artist name is clicked, in this case Bloc Party, you are presented with Artist Info, and, more usefully their Discography. Usually, most of the tracks on each individual album will be white, which indicates they are playable. You'll prob find that with most artists, some tracks are on compilation albums. Some tracks from these compilation albums (e.g. Now 47 and a half) won't be playable in this instance. They are greyed out accordingly.

Below is the screenie from when an Artist's name is clicked.

spot3.JPG

I love this software. It has almost replaced Winamp / iTunes for me. Almost.

My only gripe is the advertising. This is absolutely necessary for Spotify to exist, but I hate all advertising!

It is fairly unobtrusive & consists of a mandatory 20-30s radio-style advert about every 5th - 7th track. My estimations are approximate, I haven't counted!

But the tracks are high-quality, buffer instantly regardless of which part of the track you want to listen to & the search speed is incredible.

I would appreciate if anybody could tell me how they've implemented this. They only mention that they utilise a p2p network to maximise load speeds - this accounts for it up to a point, but still!

Great program, excellent stuff :)

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Rising Star

drlacus

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I'm from Hungary . It's in central Europe, but I cannot see the reg page, it says it is not available in my country, so not everyone in Europe could register. By the , could someone send me an invite please ? :rolleyes:

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Grand Master

ViZioN

Posted
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I love this software. It has almost replaced Winamp / iTunes for me. Almost.

My only gripe is the advertising. This is absolutely necessary for Spotify to exist, but I hate all advertising!

It is fairly unobtrusive & consists of a mandatory 20-30s radio-style advert about every 5th - 7th track. My estimations are approximate, I haven't counted!

Yeah obviously I'd prefer it without advertising, and for a modest fee thats entirely possible, but the speed of this program is simply staggering. Some of the audio advertising I find quite funny so it doesn't bother me much. I'm also quite bad for skipping a song before it reaches the end, so I possibly miss out of some of the advertising unless it is queued beforehand :p

As macf1end mentioned search results are instantaneous and songs begin playing instantly. Awesome program. It's been days since I last played music off my HDD.

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macf13nd

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Yeah obviously I'd prefer it without advertising, and for a modest fee thats entirely possible, but the speed of this program is simply staggering. Some of the audio advertising I find quite funny so it doesn't bother me much. I'm also quite bad for skipping a song before it reaches the end, so I possibly miss out of some of the advertising unless it is queued beforehand :p

As macf1end mentioned search results are instantaneous and songs begin playing instantly. Awesome program. It's been days since I last played music off my HDD.

QFT - the quality of the adverts could be much worse.

I wonder whether it's already v popular that the adverts are of this standard....

What I mean is - they are irregular enough & of sufficient quality that surely the premium on each advert must be high?

Spotify must have royalty outgoings, surely??

Quite a lot of artists these days, especially to promote their everyman image, I'm sure would allow tracks (or some tracks) to go on here without charge. Radiohead is a good example, bet Spotify don't pay for their stuff.

However, I'm sure a lot of artists do make them pay for it.

Interestingly, I read this two minutes ago - almost proves point above, the artists listed here are the kind of artists (irrespective of quality of music produced btw) that wouldn't allow their stuff to be on an online service like this one at all:

(from: http://www.spotify.com/en/help/faq/#what-is-your-goal)

spot4.JPG

------------

btw thanks to Blaise for continuing to maintain his image uploader for all this time... Last I used it was three years ago!!!

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