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Microsoft Readies a Rival To Spotify
Barence writes "Microsoft has confirmed it is preparing to launch a music streaming service. The service will be a direct rival to Spotify, hugely popular in the UK (but unavailable in the US), which allows users to stream music for free in return for listening to around a minute's worth of advertisements every half hour. 'It will be a similar principle to Spotify but we are still examining how the business model will work,' said Peter Bale, executive producer of MSN." The article claims that the new service will boost the popularity of the Zune player, though how this is to happen is not explained. There doesn't seem to be a close tie-in between device and service, as there is between the iPod and the iTunes Store.
Pretty relevant I'd say, seeing as it's the largest software company in the world.
It's no surprise MS is going for this. Summary states its popular in UK, but it's really popular everywhere in Europe, despite needing invites to get account. Even "pro-piracy" forum users are saying in news comments how spotify has changed their listening habits and they dont pirate music anymore because spofity is just so convenient. I also am in long-distance relationship with my gf currently (was necessary for her school program) and we've always had similar music taste, so now we paste spotify links to each other in facebook or im to listen to something newly discovered good music.
This *IS* what music industry needed and its great they've understood it now. Now just bring the same for movies and games, I'm even happy to pay monthly subscriptions for it. Just make it convenient and easy for me.
No, with Spotify you can choose the songs you listen to yourself. It's basically iTunes with a massive library and occasional adverts.
Actually I say occasional adverts. For some reason mine has completely stopped playing any. I have no idea why but I'm not complaining!
Is it me, or lately MS looks like a fireman with a watering can, running around trying to put out fires everywhere?
I mean, Zune (iPod), Bing (Google), this (Spottify)... Lagging behind the competition a little, are we?
My 0.02 cents
mine stopped playing adverts too - i heard that it's a bug in the linux client
(1.21 gigawatts) / (88 miles per hour) = 30 757 874 newtons
Because someone at Microsoft feels the need to answer every existing web service with one of their own, they will ultimately fail.
This strategy is ludicrous and speaks volumes about the corporate mentality at the software giant. This "we must have our hand on the top of every arena" mentality will be their downfall. They are spreading too thin and have lost sight of their purpose. When you try to compete with everyone, you compete with no one.
They're using their grammar skills there.
That tool is already available for Spotify. However, the 30 second commercial every half-hour just isn't enough an inconvenience for people to abandon the superb client. And why would you want to record the music to your hard drive? First of all, that is probably legal in most countries, second, why would you want to waste precious hard drive space when everything is available from Spotify? (I see one reason for this: transfer music to your mobile device, but a Spotify mobile client is under production).
Don't be crazy anymore!
I'm all for competition, but previous music efforts by Microsoft have been hilariously bad. This interview is comedic gold for cluelessness. An actual Q&A with Hugh Griffiths, Head of Mobile at Microsoft UK: