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Digital
Spotify chief backs away from 2010 launch in US
By CMU Editorial | Published on Wednesday 8 December 2010
Daniel Ek has backed away from his long held commitment that Spotify would launch in the US this year.
Speaking at a conference this week the Spotify chief was, for the first time, non-committal on when the streaming service will arrive Stateside, having previously indicated that a launch between Thanksgiving and Christmas – ie now – was still on the cards. He did say, however, that when it comes, the US version of Spotify will offer a free version (the 20 hours free listening a month package) as well as a ten dollar a month premium service.
While Americans can’t enjoy free streaming via Spotify at the moment, some are getting something similar to the Spotify experience via a new service called Tunify, which takes music content on YouTube and plays it through a Spotify-style player (albeit browser based) making it much easier to navigate and programme music tracks stored on the video site. Most online commentary about Tunify has been very positive, especially in the land where Spotify and We7 don’t exist.
Although the YouTube videos do play in the Tunify player, many people will probably use it as an audio service Spotify-style. There are some issues with it: obviously a video jukebox will always be limited mainly to single releases, and because it takes its music from YouTube, volume levels vary greatly from track to track. Plus some wonder how long Google will tolerate the site, given it provides content without any of its ads.
But in the meantime it’s possibly the best free streaming service available to North American music fans. Well, perhaps best after Grooveshark, whose recent revamp has also been well received by users, if not the various labels that still claim that digital service is illegal.
