Spotify

When it launched in October last year Spotify was the great little secret of the music industry. That changed last month when Spotify opened registration to all UK residents and it has fast become the talk of the Internet (well, that and Twitter). It’s not hard to see why: instantaneous, high quality audio streaming, a vast library of artists, deals in place with the Big Four record labels (Universal, Sony BMG, Time Warner & EMI) and a choice of free ad-supported or monthly subscription models. Still, time to get tough…

The preamble: My cult and contentious reviews’ system. Designed as a time saver to highlight the potential deal breakers in a product or service before you commit to reading lengthy reviews on your favourites sites and/or magazines. For a more detailed description of JtBP please read: the Rules

Just the Bad Points Review: Spotify

I feel bad even doing this:

• Spotify has yet to disclose how much bandwidth its service sucks up
• Artist Biographies are often out of date, missing off their latest releases
• No iTunes, Last.fm or Pandora integration
• No Lyrics
• Basic radio incorporation
• Only form of music recommendations come through advertising
• Few features/software updates since launch
• Very limited options to purchase content (though arguably it slightly destroys the point)
• More invasive secondary advertising has been creeping (particularly in case of new U2 album ‘No Line on the Horizon’)
• While new content is added, existing content has shrunk with individual artists demanding greater royalty deals
• No third party handset applications as yet (despite iPhone client being spotted)
• Security question marks after user accounts were hacked last week

Despite this get it, just GET IT!

As always suggestions welcome…

Update: to be clear there is at least scrobbling to Last.fm (appreciated radioedit)