Spotify---Giving iTunes a Run for its Money?

This past week billboard.biz announced that Spotify, the widely successful music service that took Europe by storm, has come to America at long last. With spotify, users will be able to search for any track, share music, and even use mobile devices and an offline mode if they become premium members.

Billboard is projecting that the market for music listening services as a whole will improve as a result of this new software. Although iTunes is probably still the most well-known program, competition will likely be healthy for the music service market as programs like Spotify and Rhapsody continue to compete for subscribers.

Just yesterday, I received an email telling me that my own Spotify account was ready. This morning, I eagerly logged in, started perusing the program, and began searching for artists and creating playlists. Like most programs nowadays, Spotify allows you to sync with facebook and share musical tastes a la Last.fm. It also syncs your iTunes library so that you can access all of your current music through Spotify.

Spotify bases a lot of music sharing around user-generated playlists, that can then be switched on and made public to other users. The one thing that I don't really enjoy are the advertisements that come up in the side bars which, unfortunately, can be characteristic of applications that require the internet. I do, however, love the fact that Spotify helps to advertise artists by playing little previews of their music and encouraging users to click to listen on Spotify. It's an informative way to discover new music.

As the software continues to develop and as it gains speed in the states, I look forward to hearing feedback about Spotify and discovering further innovations in the way that we experience music.