This is a Guest Post by Mariana Ashley. Mariana is a freelance writer who particularly enjoys writing about online colleges. She loves receiving readers feedback, which can be directed to mariana.ashley031@gmail.com.

One of the most popular streaming music services in Europe, called Spotify, has finally landed on US soil this July. Across the pond, the music streamer has several million users, with an impressive amount paying for more-than free accounts—over 1.6 million. As of late September, Spotify has a total of ten million registered users. How Spotify will fare in America is yet to be seen, but there is much to the Spotify that other similar music streaming services don't currently offer.


For one, Spotify has made deals with various major record companies, thus enabling users to access a much wider variety of music than is usually offered. Although the track numbers available to users is growing by about 10,000 songs per day, currently Spotify users can access about fifteen million tracks. Users may search by various search filters, including by artist, album, title, label or genre. Spotify has made licensing deals with various record labels, both major and independent. Some of the bigger names include Sony, EMI, Warner Music Group, and Universal.

In addition to listening to a wide range of songs, users may create playlists and share them with others. What's more, Spotify enables users to work on playlists together using collaborative software. A playlist may be linked into an email or instant message, and several different users can edit a playlist, which is updated automatically when new tracks or added or old ones are removed. In this way, Spotify is more "social" than most music streaming services. Each user also has a profile page and can connect to their friends on Facebook to view what their friends are listening to and to look at their friends' playlists.

Of course, not everything about Spotify is user-friendly. Very recently, Spotify significantly rolled back on the number of tracks available to non-paid subscribers. What's more, users with a free Spotify account can only listen to a track a total of five times, and they can listen to streaming music for a maximum of ten hours per month. Paid members, however, have access to the entire database, and they have access to a mobile application as well.

A recent Los Angeles Times opinion editorial describes what makes Spotify different conceptually speaking, and predicts how it will fare on American soil. For one, the article explains that Spotify is unusual in that it has persuaded very big name record companies to adopt their business model. Another Spotify feat is that it has also persuaded a very significant group of users to become paying customers. The article does note that Spotify has many obstacles to face in America, the most important one being that Americans in particular are more wary of paying for service that can be had for free.

In the final analysis, Spotify offers an interesting alternative that may take the music world by storm. For those who are artists or marketers online, Spotify moreover provides the possibility of exposure, whether through advertisements (which are well-represented on free accounts held by non-paying customers) or through enabling your music to be featured on Spotify. Bottom line, for those interested in Internet trends, Spotify is definitely one service to keep your eye on as it becomes increasingly popular.

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