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All posts tagged "spotify"


Sunday, August 28, 2011

(Re)Discovering Music - A Guide For Today's Options

Posted by Brad Wasson in "Digital Home Talk" @ 06:00 PM

http://lifehacker.com/5833531/how-t...he-post+mp3-age

"Luckily internet services abound for discovering, trying, and buying new music. Unfortunately, your choices can be a little overwhelming, not all tools fit your needs, and few of them actually integrate with one another. Here's how to work new music into your life in a post-MP3 age, from discovering it to integrating it into your library."

Discovering new music and artists is one of the real joys of life. If you're like me, you may get frustrated from time to time when you hear a song while driving, working, or otherwise focusing on an activity that is not the music itself and wonder who the artist is and what the name of the song is. Often, before you figure it out, it's gone. You may also be spending some time exploring music on the web or on conventional radio or satellite radio, and find that it's a tedious, non-scientific, endeavor. Fortunately, with a little planning and experience, you can leverage all kinds of music resources, tools, and repositories, and experience that wonderful feeling of finding a great song. Lifehacker has put together a three-step process for effectively exploring the world for music using present-day options: discovering music you like, on-demand streaming, and buying. If music is a big part of your life, read this posting and take advantage of the options available to us these days.


Friday, August 12, 2011

Have Music Subscription Service Finally Gone Mainstream?

Posted by Jason Dunn in "Digital Home Articles & Resources" @ 01:00 PM

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/glob...article2124186/

"Acquiring new music can be a very addictive and expensive hobby. Downloading an album or the new single from that hot new band from iTunes a few times a month can add up quickly. Which is why new subscription services are garnering so much buzz lately - for $5 to $10 a month these websites offer an easy, affordable (and somewhat legal) way to get all the music you want."

I can hear the people inside the Zune offices at Microsoft screaming "We've been doing this for years!?!" as they sob quietly in their cubicles. For whatever reason - likely because it's Microsoft - the Zune Pass option just never managed to gain wide-spread traction. The price probably had a lot to do with it - $15 is too expensive for many people, especially when the competition comes in closer to the $10 price point.

I've personally never really gravitated toward a service like this because my own collection of music is somewhere in the realm of 14,000 songs. When it comes to needing music to listen to, I've got it covered - however, I've shifted from purchasing full CDs to the more common practice of cherry-picking the tracks I want and the growth of that collection has slowed considerably.

The social aspect of these services may be their most compelling feature; I just signed up for a trial of Rdio, a service I'd heard of but hadn't tried, and I'm really impressed with how I can see what others are listening to and explore music in different ways. Yes, Zune has had similar features for a while now, but I've never found the Web-based version of Zune very intuitive or functional. Part of that is the ongoing struggle I have being a Canadian trying to use Zune services. I grew tired of the cat-and-mouse game with the Zune team making it increasingly more difficult for non-supported countries to access Zune goodness. But let's not get started down that road, or I'll be spitting at my screen in no time.

Do you subscribe to a service like Rdio, Spotify, Rhapsody, Zune Pass, etc.?


Saturday, July 30, 2011

Putting You On The Spot: To Spotify Or Not?

Posted by Brad Wasson in "Digital Home Talk" @ 12:00 PM

http://www.businessinsider.com/why-...-spotify-2011-7

"At first blush, paying a monthly amount to "borrow" content like this over the net seems like a pretty good idea. Many of us have used Netflix or Hulu and become accustomed to the idea of paying our monthly subscription fee and getting to watch as much as we want. Both of these companies have done a fantastic job with their offerings. Netflix has become so popular that it recently surpassed the amount of Bittorrent ("pirate") traffic on the web, proving that it's compelling offerings, not lawsuits, that win customer's hearts and minds. But if Hulu and Netflix are so fantastic, what's the concern about Spotify?"

Spotify is a popular music service newly available to US customers. James Allworth over at the Business Insider has written a post suggesting that you may want to think twice before committing to a service like Spotify, which he describes as a music renting service, since you could be subject to a bait and switch tactic that may effectively force you to pay more money for the same service in the future. His argument is certainly plausible, but not everyone will agree with his premise. So, the question is: how do you feel about the Spotify service and are you concerned about future possible price increases?


Friday, July 15, 2011

Six Months Of Spotify Free For US Listeners

Posted by Brad Wasson in "Digital Home Talk" @ 12:00 PM

http://www.businessinsider.com/the-...x-months-2011-7

"Spotify has been cagey about how much free music U.S. listeners can get -- the news wasn't in its press release this morning, and they were slow responding to questions. Another report suggested the free tier would max out at 20 hours per month. That's wrong. There will be no cap on the free tier for six months."

The popular Spotify music service has a, well, great offer for US listeners. How about free service for the first six months? To get the deal you will need to apply for an invitation to the free tier. The Read link has the details.


Tuesday, June 21, 2011

Lifehacker Compares Cloud Music Services

Posted by Lee Yuan Sheng in "Digital Home Software" @ 10:00 AM

http://lifehacker.com/5812138/cloud...tm_medium=email

"Having to sync all your music between devices is annoying. Luckily a number of cloud music services allow you to stream your music to nearly everything—laptops, tablets, smartphones—with minimal effort or tech know-how. Each has its strengths and weaknesses, depending on your needs; here's how to figure out which one's best for you."

Lifehacker takes a good look at the various cloud music services out there, and has a pretty balanced write-up on each of them. I do wonder, with data plans becoming more restricted in the US, and with most of the services aimed at the US market, would anyone really want to stream their music to their phones instead of just storing it on them?


Tuesday, March 29, 2011

Spotify Now Streamable on Onkyo Receivers with Added Features

Posted by Danny Simmons in "Digital Home Hardware & Accessories" @ 07:00 PM

http://gizmodo.com/#!5786670/spotif...layed-on-the-tv

"For over a year now, Spotify's been streamable on Sonos systems, but you weren't able to tinker with playlists on anything but a laptop or phone. Today that changes, with Onkyo home cinema receivers becoming compatible with Spotify Premium accounts, controllable on the TV interface."

We still don't know the full specs, but Onkyo is bringing some great new features to Spotify with their new receivers. It will be very interesting to see what else they have to offer in the TX-NR609. Are you a Spotify user? Have you been waiting for these features for your home theater, or would you rather just control it from a laptop?


Tuesday, January 25, 2011

Did Digital Kill the Radio Star?

Posted by Todd Klein in "Digital Home Talk" @ 08:00 AM

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/24/t...&pagewanted=all

"The International Federation of the Phonographic Industry, a trade group based in London, said last week that sales of music in digital form had risen only 6 percent worldwide in 2010, even as the overall music market had shrunk 8 percent or 9 percent, extending a decade-long decline. In each of the past two years, the rate of increase in digital revenue has approximately halved. If that trend continues, digital sales could top out at less than $5 billion this year, about a third of the overall music market but many billions of dollars short of the amount needed to replace long-gone sales of compact discs. “Music’s first digital decade is behind us and what do we have?” said Mark Mulligan, an analyst at Forrester Research. “Not a lot of progress. We are at one of the most worrying stages yet for the industry,” he continued. “As things stand now, digital music has failed.”

The New York Times reports this astonishing indictment of an industry that's produced iTunes, Pandora, Spotify, Lastfm and several other services with millions of engaged worldwide users. Yes, digital killed the CD business by undbundling songs from albums, and by extension struck a fatal blow to bricks and mortar music retailers. Yes, piracy is a problem that must be managed if artists are to be supported. But to declare that an entirely new medium, digital delivery of music, has failed because the established players have suffered economically while consumers have experienced a technology tsunami of music discovery, sharing, choice, and purchasing models seems to put the cart before the horse.

Tell me, has digital killed your music experience?


Tuesday, March 30, 2010

Spotify Coming to US

Posted by Chris Gohlke in "Digital Home Software" @ 01:30 PM

http://www.ehomeupgrade.com/2010/03...he-u-s-q3-2010/

"The Spotify music service will be coming to the U.S. in the third quarter of 2010, according to Spotify’s Senior VP. He tells Bloomberg: “We’re buying server space in random parts of the states and there are licensing discussions too.” All this is great news because it means U.S. users will soon be able to listen to just about any song or album from major and independent record labels in their entirety free, or without ads, for around $15/mo (in Europe the fee is €9.99/mo)."

Looks quite similar to Slacker Radio which I reviewed last year. If Spotify can get the licensing to cover almost every song and album, they'll do pretty well. Looks like they have clients for most of the major mobile platforms (with the exception of Windows), so you'll have lots of options.

Tags: software, spotify

Tuesday, July 14, 2009

Music Streaming Coming To You From Microsoft

Posted by Hooch Tan in "Digital Home News" @ 02:00 PM

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sciencea...this-month.html

"Peter Bale, executive producer of MSN, Microsoft’s news and entertainment portal, told The Telegraph exclusively: “Music is an important area for Microsoft. We are looking at launching a music streaming service imminently. It will be a similar principle to Spotify but we are still examining how the business model will work.” "

The as yet named Microsoft music streaming service will likely come in free (Read: ads, ads, ads) and paid (Read: recurring monthly fees!) versions. Since they mentioned Spotify, instead of Pandora, it is likely that the service will likely be a customizable radio station where you're given access to a bountiful library of music and you create your own playlist instead of a station that plays music based on your ability to yay or nay particular songs. You can also bet that Microsoft is looking for a way to include this on the Zune. It may have taken several years, but it appears that Microsoft may finally be forming a challenger to the iTunes/iPod empire. The Zune, if it includes this new streaming service and HD Radio and FM radio on top of its existing abilities will make it a powerful and impressive media player, but I think that Apple's market share is safe for a while yet. Would a music streaming service that would work on your computer and WiFi/3G connected device interest you?


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