A New Challenger
It’s a Friday morning, Boyzone are the latest musical talent to be mourned over the airwaves, and I’m scrolling through the list. The track list to be exact. The track list to our expertly compiled Spotify playlist; entitled Rocktastic. For months we have been pooling our collective knowledge and tastes to form what is arguably becoming the greatest Rock collection of all time. So there I am, deciding whether or not to retrace the glory days of the late Stephen Gately – when I notice a new button! This may not be news to some of you, but I’ve not seen this arrow-through-circle logo before. So I click it, to find that those chaps at 7Digital have secured a deal with Spotify, enabling users to buy and download tracks. This is the very same 7Digital that agreed a similar deal with Blackberry (http://bit.ly/3lLvSF) and the same 7Digital that are now half owned by HMV (http://bit.ly/lRFdZ).
I think we all agree that up until now i-Tunes has done a decent job of making a lot of money from their transactional service, charging about £8 per album, and has had no real reason to fear this particular challenger over any other. However Spotify’s trump card now comes into play. For £9.99 a month, premium subscribers now have access to an “Unlimited Download” feature (http://bit.ly/8jhiC) which essentially allows an unlimited number of tracks to be stored on a PC for a temporary period.
Now consider that Spotify premium is available on the iPhone (http://bit.ly/bR5RK), and you’ve got one almighty game of digital paper-scissor-stone…
Soon, Last.FM will join the fray through their partnership with XBOX (http://bit.ly/2xFFUa), enabling those gamers to stream music via their console. So where does this leave the others; Pandora, MySpace, Grooveshark, we7, even Youtube! Surely without innovation or a unique proposition, without awareness and loyalty, their days are numbered.
Have your say here. What do you think of the future of online music? And what of digital radio? Or music television stations? Is there room for this many outlets?
In the meantime; here’s the Rocktastic playlist link… enjoy
http://open.spotify.com/user/wiz1000/playlist/1UMaAppiTqSOPt8im6MS2L
October 19th, 2009 at 2:32 pm
I think spotify got it right with there Iphone/blackberry app meaning that you dont physically have to buy/download music anymore. Although I think Apple are missing a trick here, they should produce an ipod, Iphone app that is exactly like Spotify utilising their entire iTunes catalogue.
October 22nd, 2009 at 10:24 am
Spotify. Is. Amazing.
It is the best new piece of technology in the last 5 years bar none (yeah, including the iPhone).
Personally, since the proliferation of Spotify I haven’t had an urge to buy, download or acquire music in any form. Instead I can open Spotify and have my favourite music already loaded into pre-selected playlists. This does not bode well for lots of music mediums.
Obviously there are pitfalls to Spotify – not least you have to know what music you would like to listen to, ie. it is a pull medium and won’t push any new content into your ears (good for some, abhorrent to others).
As a major advocate of Spotify I leave you simply with this…..Go Spotify.