Sunday, 29 January 2012

Spotify Premium

So, we're back after quite a long holiday. There have been many interesting things that have happened (technology wise) over the past few weeks.

Spotify Premium
I love listening to music. Every day, my smartphone is connected to my speakers or something else that allows me to broadcast music from a great application, Spotify. The first time I used Spotify was in 2009. I wanted a solution that would allow me to quickly open an app on my desktop and search for a piece of music and then play it within seconds. It worked first time.

There were a few draw-backs though:

  • I had to wait 9 months for an invite (yes, this was some time ago)
  • The library was not as big as it is now...
This was called Spotify Open. It was a free version of Spotify that gave you 20 hours a month of playing how ever much music you liked. I fell in love quickly.

Now, a few years on, until a few weeks ago, I was still using Spotify Free. There were a few things that I didn't quite get. Why on earth do I care what my Facebook friends are listening to? Why do I want them to see what I'm listening to? And the most annoying, why was I only allowed to play the same song 5 times before I had to purchase it? A lot of people complained about ads, but I was getting it free, so I didn't mind them.

From now on, I no longer have to deal with these issues again (except the social ones). The ads are gone, I can stream music through my mobile device, I can get music offline on my PC, Tablet and Smartphone and The library is still as big as it was.

Spotify Premium is £9.99 a month in the UK. I love it and I think it is worth the money.

While there are other free alternatives out there, none of them match up to Spotify. GrooveShark, one of my favourite free music platforms runs in a browser. I like to keep the web browser for the things that it's designed to do i.e surf the web.

The options for Spotify Premium are endless. I can play as much music as I like (the only thing that is capped is the data connection from my mobile internet provider), I can create playlists, I can stream to my TiVo box using the Spotify App and as always, share the music to Facebook if I wish.

I've never really been a Pay As You go music man. I always prefer to pay a steady fee and rent it rather than spending £10 on a whole album from iTunes or Amazon.

Spotify, for years, has been the best solution for me. Is it the best solution for you?

Posted by Pat
Labels: , , , , ,