Spotify – New Digital Music Service in US

Digital music service Spotify arrived in the United States on Thursday, aiming its addictive, free song service at American listeners in the hope that they will then pay for more features, just as nearly 2 million have done in Europe.

Spotify gives people access to more than 15 million songs on computers for free as long as they listen to a few 15-second ads. Spotify is the latest in an array of companies to offer a subscription music plan with the cooperation of the major music labels. The most popular of the subscription services, Rhapsody, has more than 800,000 paying subscribers.

But none of the existing plans have what Spotify offers: an enticing free service that offers a huge chunk of listening and gets consumers to bond with its interface. Pandora, a popular Internet radio service, allows for unlimited free listening to songs with audio ads, but it doesn’t allow users to pick specific tracks and its library of songs is far smaller.

For $9.99 a month I can get unlimited streaming music on my computer and my iPhone, save playlists for offline listening and even share mixes with other friends who are on Spotify. Sounds like the ideal service. Napster!? See, reading about Spotify got me thinking about our old horn-headed friend. What I found was a feature set that sounded like a slightly less impressive Spotify.

For $9.99 a month Napster will let you listen to unlimited streaming music on your computer and your iPhone. About the only thing you can’t do on Napster that you can on Spotify is share mixes with your friends. I’m not trying to diminish Spotify. If people weren’t paying attention to you before Spotify, you’re going to have an awfully hard time getting their attention now.

The on-demand streaming music service snuck into the country this week with minimal advance notice. Spotify's service brings access to 15 million songs from any Windows or OS X machine, and up to three mobile devices with an upgrade to Spotify Premium for $9.99 a month. Spotify clearly is gunning for iTunes. It easily imports existing local files and playlists, including music you purchase from Apple's iTunes store.

Unlike Rdio, MOG, Pandora and others, Spotify isn't web-based. Local radio stations don't give my favorite songs much airplay. Right now the social aspect of the service revolves around Facebook. I found the process of connecting with fellow Spotify users who aren't on that social network a bit cumbersome. Spotify is looking good.