Spotify: The Future of Music Software

"A world of music. Instant, simple and free"

Spotify has been around for a few months now, but has spent most of that time in private beta and it's been almost impossible to get invite codes for it; although it still remains invite-only in many countries, if you're in the UK you're in luck and will be able to sign up invite-free! Having used it for a few months now, I can't help but feel Spotify's about to create a big splash in what is already, a very large pond of media players, and possible bring the end to the mighty iTunes (for some, anyway).

Key Features

• Free unlimited access to a library of over 40,000 songs from all the major labels and loads of small indie labels.
• Instantly search for any song, band or album and play it with no delay for loading of buffering.
• Fast and lightweight! In heavy use Spotify still only uses 17mb of your precious RAM, allowing you to just leave your music going without ever worrying about losing any of your speed.
• Last.fm support.
• Biography of bands appear at the top of their page, provided by 'All Music Guide'
• Similar artists and 'Artist Radio' help you discover new music.
• Playlist support, including a 'collaborative playlist' feature, allowing you to create a playlist that others can also add to. Like sharing music with friends? This is for you!
• HTTP links to songs. When you find something you like, simply right click and click "Copy HTTP link" and send this to your friend with spotify. This will let all your friends be able to instantly hear exactly what you're talking about.

Shortcomings

• 1 or 2 short adverts (30 seconds long) play about every half an hour, however they are unobstrusive and much less frustrating than those on commercial radio. That said, £0.99 will buy you a day's ad-free listening, or £9.99 for a whole month of free legal music goodness.
• No mobile or iPod support. The program works by streaming music on demand, unfortunatley this makes it impossible to support iPods. Mobile compatability is being developed and will be available soon.
• No way of purchasing music through Spotify. If you're one of those people who like to actually own your music this might not be for you, with currently no ability to buy music from within Spotify, though this feature is in development.
• The software makes extensive use of P2P. If you have high bandwidth allowances and don't mind uploading pretty steadily this is fine, but if you're on a restricted connection this could be a problem.

So straight from the developers who brought you uTorrent, enjoy Spotify!

Download Spotify

Also! I have 10 invites to give out, so if you want one, just email me at owencmoore@gmail.com and I'll send you one! But hurry, they're first come first serve!