Velez's View

About a month or so I received an invite to join Spotify, an on demand online music streaming service. I was already happy with the two music services I use now, Pandora and Last.fm, so I passed on the invitation. Recently Spotify teamed up with Facebook to offer its 800 million members a great way to listen to music online and share tunes with their Facebook friends, so I thought I’d give Spotify a try. I’m glad I did.

You have to download and install the Spotify program to your computer, so for some who hate downloading stuff this might be a deal breaker. A few months ago you could join the service on its own, but now a Facebook account is required. I recommend checking it out. Your Facebook friends on Spotify can decide to share their playlist and favorite artists with you or keep this info private, which just recently became an option. I like listening to music when I want and it also allows me to listen to new full-length music anytime I want. If I really enjoy the song I can buy it on iTunes. So far, I’m loving Spotify.

Did I mention the service is free? Spotify provides you with 10 hours of free music a month. There are short commercials along the way, but they’re not very annoying. If you really love the service you can opt for a premium service with unlimited music and no commercials. For now the free service works for me.

Spotify has an incredible music library, but of course not all songs/artists are available. For example, I love Seal and was happy to see that most of his music is just a click away. However another one of my favorite singers, Adele, only has her first album and her mega hit “Rolling in the Deep” from her second album, 21, available for streaming on Spotify.

Music has been social online for some time now, however this joint venture by Facebook and Spotify may take online music sharing to the next level. So if you have a Facebook account and enjoy listening to your favorite music online and finding new music your friends already like, give Spotify a try.

If you already use Spotify feel free to share your thoughts on it so far. Enjoy the music!