I have been a member of Grooveshark since they first launched, so this post is in no way biased towards Spotify, regardless of the fact that Spotify has been the subject of 4/5 posts lately.

Grooveshark started out as something really interesting. It was a peer-to-peer music sharing platform with a difference – legality. You had a little system-tray widget installed on your computer, which would gradually upload your enitre music library to Grooveshark’s servers. Users could then purchase these tracks from Grooveshark, who would give you a cut (we’re talking pennies here), and pay the royalties, making the whole thing quasi-legal.

However somewhere along the lines the business model switched.

Continue Reading »

Okay these posts are becoming a bit of a joke now. But I really like Spotify, it’s probably my favourite European start-up right now (after GigLocator of course) and I just want it to work!

I saw Shak at FOWA yesterday and he mentioned Spotify have offline support on the desktop now – flipping pro! This is a killer feature, and another reason for me to keep my Premium subscription. All I need now is for the guys to get high-bitrate tracks working again. It’d also be nice for the mobile version to support Last.fm scrobbling.

Of course it’s always a constant battle, with such a high subscription. If only they could offer discounts on the year subs, I’d be truly sold.

Excuse the title. This is just the latest in my Spotify series of posts.

I’m paying for Premium, and it just doesn’t work. The desktop app constantly gives me an error “There is a problem with the connection to Spotify. Please try again shortly” whenever I try and play a high-bitrate track. I’ve followed all the instructions and keep checking back on the Spotify status page. Obviously I don’t want to be paying for premium and listening to songs in a low bitrate, that kind of defeats the purpose.

I’ve also had some trouble with the iPhone app too. See the attached image. I have only ever used the Spotify app on my iPhone 3GS, so I have no idea what this error is about, but either way it erased all my downloaded tracks.

Therefore I have now un-subscribed from Spotify Premium. Back to the advertisements for me.

After listening to Daniel Ek speak at Glasshouse last night, I’m predicting the end of the music industry as we know it.

Just imagine in a few years, if Spotify becomes ‘the way’ that people listen to music. Everyone around the world listens and shares music via Spotify – which is very possible. For years we’ve relied on mp3s and CDs. Let’s face it, nobody buys physical media any more, and with services like Spotify, piracy is becoming less of an issue.

The music industry has failed to modernise. They failed to provide people with what we want: easy access to music, on any device of our chosing. They tried to tie us down and it will be the death of them.

Now, back to Spotify ruling the world. Once Spotify become popular enough, I predict they’ll start going directly to artists, more and more, to arrange royalty deals. Of course is Spotify are dealing directly with artists, this cuts out the evil middle man – the record labels.

Spotify (and/or similar music services) could be the end of the music industry as we know it. By killing off the record labels completely, they make music about music again. Give control back to the artists. After all, record labels are not needed for distribution any more.

Of course there’s still the issue of marketing (which is about the only service record labels seem to offer these days), which will also solve it’s self in due course.

I look forward to a time with no Record Labels and in turn, no RIAA!

iPhone app. Simples.

Today I purchased a Spotify Premium Membership, for the sole purpose of using the iPhone app. It’s great! I’ll write a review after giving it more time.

It’s just a shame there’s no alternative to the £10 monthly fee. The yearly package is the exact same price – but I hear this is out of Spotify’s hands. The music labels won’t allow them to give any discounts. Annoying, but that’s business sometimes I suppose.