Austin360 blogs > Digital Savant > Archives > 2011 > July > 26 > Entry
Digital Savant feedback: your take on Spotify
I guess you wanted to talk about Spotify!
Yesterday, I posted my impressions of the Swedish music service, which just debuted in the U.S. two weeks ago. Music writer Peter Mongillo also wrote about Austin acts on the service and has an Austin Music Source playlist you can check out. (Playlist link requires Spotify application.)
I also asked on Twitter, Facebook and Google+ for some feedback and received lots of great likes/dislikes about the service. Some of them helped solidify my opinions, others I disagree with. Here’s a sampling of some of the comments we got:
Sunshine1970: I love it. Signed up 4 unlimited pkg. Find it grt 4 trying out new music & deciding if I want to buy CD or not.
Robert Wood: I’m still figuring it out. I love that if I only have a few songs from an album on iTunes that I can play the whole record on Spotify
Christine Cramer: Very easy search (vs. Grooveshark, for example) Hate the ads.
woolyknickers: I like it a lot, but I wish they had a Genius-style function because all that thinking is hard. Also, I need to spring for ad-free.
PunkSOda: like: generates URL for sharing playlists, library is current/deep, ‘sounds like’/suggestions more accurate than other applications. dislikes: less to do w/the software more to do w/ licensing: No Beatles; after 3mo. free access limited to 10hr/mo
Megan Hanson: I think it’s awesome. I like that it’s still used by more internet-savy, alt-types. The “top-lists” are less billboard, radio-y.
George Stumberg IV: the sound quality is really lousy. They skimped on bitrate to keep bandwidth costs down.
Kevin McGuire: I have been loving @Spotify. Perfect iTunes substitute for me. Same library, ability to discover new music from my friends.
Adam Price: I really like that you can find a song or group you like and then listen to the entire album. I miss listening to whole albums.
Ben Conrad: liked the social aspect of it — listening to selections of those with better taste in music than I have (and btw — that lonely island turtleneck song is hilarious)
Amanda Quraishi: I love that I can stream my lists to my phone, plug that puppy in and enjoy it on the drive home.
Steve Masters: I’ve used it some — haven’t fallen in love with it. It’s harder to navigate through a large music collection than I’d like, and definitely harder than in iTunes. If there’s a way to get recommendations for new music, I haven’t found it yet in my poking around. Biggest upside seems to be full-song streaming of music I don’t own yet. If there’s a way to combine recommendations with that, I’d be more likely to be sold on it as a standalone offering. Otherwise it requires going elsewhere to learn and then into Spotify to check it out.
John Yarbrough: Discovery is probably the best feature. It’s a great feeling listening to an album or artist on a whim knowing that you can either save it for later if you like it or delete without feeling like you wasted money.
Lori Luza: I LOVE that I can listen to someone else’s playlist of music I don’t even have! One friend signed up for a pay membership when she found a good selection of Chinese pop (or something like that)
Elizabeth Stoddard: I love that I can skip around songs and not have to listen to things all the way through (unlike on Pandora). I guess I’ll just have to find a playlist to recommend new music/artists to me, though.
Craig Jenkins: Probably sharing playlists is the biggest deal. Grooveshark let me check on new bands so nothing new there. Think I will be able to finely say goodbye to my 120G ipod. The link to iphone makes it worth it alone.
Cody: I appreciate that I’m able to hear some of the CDs that were stolen from me 10 years ago but to use Spotify you have to hold its hand. My interface stops playing after a few songs making it hard to use outside. So Unless I’m on my desktop constantly thinking of the next album or song it is pretty weak. I put my own band on it but I haven’t seen the results from that yet. How will anyone new find my band? They have to search it specifically. They need a radio feature where you can get some discovery of new artists and a hands off approach to listening. The hands on searching is great for active use but passive use is out of the question.
Brandon Kirchner: cool, but frequent ads…
Amy Watts: HATE the ads. And not because they’re ads, but b/c it’s often a music snippet that makes me think I’ve messed up my playlist. LOVE the ease of arranging playlists (drag and drop), pretty good selection of music (only a few gaps in what I’ve searched for.)
Darlene Fiske: love it! especially like commercials since they help me determine how to use spotify’s features. istening to friend’s playlist now. Also really enjoy ease of clicking through to Spotify playlists/songs from Facebook. The social integration is key.
Ben Hunt: While I don’t mind ads, I really don’t like the irrelevant ads. For instance nearly my entire library is synced up with Spotify and it’s primarily hip hop, yet I get ads for new country. Nothing in my listening history or library would make that match.
Eric Pulsifer: I don’t like that when I’m listening to my locally stored music I still have to hear ads. If this is going to replace iTunes for me, which it seems like that’s the idea, I don’t want to hear ads when I’m listening to music I own.
Rishi Patel: I think it’s a little faster than iTunes. And the ability to share playlists is AWESOME!
Dale Blasingame: Love the simplicity and layout. Quality and song selection appears to be better than services like GrooveShark.
Laura Babbili: I love it. UI is familiar (iTunes-esque), social-sharing music is rad. song selection is lacking though if you like obscure stuff
Scott Henderson: Like how @Spotify facilitates social discovery. Not hugely different than @Rdio though.
Roby Brown: Would like a Pandora-like “discover” feature. Like the depth of catalog. Wish it had more out-of-print stuff. Haven’t gone Premium.
Matt Reyes: I haven’t switched over from @Rdio bc the Spotify iPhone app isn’t the greatest.
Lindsay Lacy: I use the (Android) g2x so there is a spotify app but you have to have premium for that. I prefer Pandora because I like the recommendations, but have not used spotify much because of part one. Since I usually use my phone, I am very happy to continue using Pandora, but it is amazing to be able to access specific tracks on a whim.
Joe Long: I’d be interested to know why Spotify has been so hyped up since its release. It’s not that different than others that have been in the market much longer. I’m guessing because of a much better marketing approach than RDIO, which has been around longer and is the superior product despite having a few million less songs in its library. I’d be willing to bet that most Spotify users have little to no knowledge of services like RDIO, and if they tried both would realize that RDIO is just as good if not better. Sorry, i’m a bit of a fanboy. :)
Lori Todd: I really, really dug it but then I gave Rdio another try and it won out.The main drawback for me is that it only has a desktop client and no web-based service.
Ryan O’Keefe: I like it, but it does take some work building playlists. Don’t mind ads, that’s what you get when you want something free. I’d say it’s high on my list next to Grooveshark, Rdio and Pandora. Love the discovery aspect, but wish they offered mobile app with free version otherwise it’s strictly desktop which I think limits it.
Deven Nongbri: The sharing factor seems to be easier on Spotify than on other, earlier attempts at music subscription models (think Rhapsody, LAUNCHcast).
Felicia Adams: I’m a huge fan — love the collaborative playlists with my friends. See the one for Blogathonatx and Song You Lost Your Virginity To. Both fun :) It’s what I was hoping Ping would be (but was so so far from it) and what I’ve always wanted blip.fm to become.
Cuban: You should note the grayed out tracks are common across all the streaming services, including Rdio and Rhapsody. I still don’t know how Spotify stacks up against these two, all I have is my first impression of opening up the app and seeing…a lot of empty config menus. Bleh.
Beragon: spotify is cool, but here we go again: no Beatles -.-
Jonathan Brown: I’ve found that their playlist creation features are nifty, but their back catalog could use some growth.
Greg Bueno: Classical music fans may not like the number of tracks unavailable on albums. Some indie labels are totally absent.
Chris Aytes: I found the library weak compared to @Rhapsody, if using as a music service w/o interest in the networking aspects.
Wes Miller: I like Spotify a lot. Wish it had better discovery tools, search autocomplete, and no “music borders” (geo-limited music).
John Knox: There is some hard to find stuff on spotify. I’m not sure you can get ‘the power of one’ soundtrack anywhere else.
Pamela Ribon: Phone app jacked my iPhone. Perhaps I’m naive, but I didn’t realize syncing music wasn’t in the cloud, but ON my actual phone.
NotTheCar: I have still not figured out what some of it means. Some songs are pink, little icons in the columns, what do they mean???
Dennis Smith: only thing I don’t like is that you have to have premium for the mobile version…
Lisa Peterson: Populating it is a little time-consuming.
Heather Smith: I know Blackberry is on its way to obsolete, BUT, was bummed (as a heavy mobile music user) that they’ve left blackberry out of their on-the-go plans. Music selection: unless I have super-obscure tastes (and I know that’s definitely NOT the case), they’re light on back catalog stuff. Newer releases, sure - harder to find older indie stuff.
Jennifer J De Guelle: Pros: Better streaming than Grooveshark with a comparable catalog, better social connect interface, easier to find new music based on what your friends are playlisting. Cons: Although free, the ads are excessive and intrusive. The sponsored artist breaks, for example, can’t be muted or the add will pause. I also find the floating ads that shift as you scroll to be annoying. Tricking users into clicking on an ad is a poor marketing tactic. At this point, I am satisfied using the Tiny Shark app via Android to export my Grooveshark playlist in order to stream in the car. So, I wouldn’t pay for the premium level. I prefer both Spotify and Grooveshark over Pandora or Jango because of the ability to stream and save specific songs rather than a stream only a general catalog.
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