Spotify is a music, podcast, and video streaming service that was officially launched on 7 October 2008. It is developed by startup Spotify AB in Stockholm, Sweden. The long awaited streaming music service, Spotify landed in the U. S. last week MusicStreaming Service Spotify Finally Arrives in the US News MusicStreaming. Spotify Wikipedia. Spotify is a music, podcast, and video streaming service that was officially launched on 7 October 2. It is developed by startup Spotify AB in Stockholm, Sweden. It provides digital rights managementprotected content from record labels and media companies. Spotify is a freemium service basic features are free with advertisements or limitations, while additional features, such as improved streaming quality and music downloads, are offered via paid subscriptions. Spotify is available in most of Europe, most of the Americas, Australia, New Zealand, and parts of Asia. It is available for most modern devices, including Windows, mac. OS, and Linux computers, as well as i. OS, Windows Phone and Android smartphones and tablets. Music can be browsed through or searched for by parameters such as artist, album, genre, playlist, or record label. Users can create, edit, and share playlists, share tracks on social media, and make playlists with other users. Spotify provides access to more than 3. As of June 2. 01. July 2. 01. 7. Spotify pays royalties based on the number of artists streams as a proportion of total songs streamed on the service, unlike physical or download sales, which pay artists a fixed price per song or album sold. They distribute approximately 7. Spotify has faced criticism from artists and producers, including Taylor Swift and Radiohead singer Thom Yorke, who feel that it does not fairly compensate music creators as music sales decline and streaming increases. Purple128/v4/eb/07/c1/eb07c1a6-adad-e24e-98fd-a098c032d75f/source/576x768bb.jpg' alt='Why Does Spotify Not Open On My Mac' title='Why Does Spotify Not Open On My Mac' />Spotify announced in April 2. Premium service for a maximum of two weeks if they are part of Universal Music Group and Merlin Network, as part of its efforts to renegotiate new license deals with record labels for a reported interest in going public. Business modeleditSpotify operates under a freemium business model basic services are free, while additional features are offered via paid subscriptions. Spotify is a digital music service that gives you access to millions of songs. Why Does Spotify Not Open On My Mac' title='Why Does Spotify Not Open On My Mac' />Spotify makes its revenues by selling premium streaming subscriptions to users and advertising placements to third parties. In December 2. 01. Spotify for Artists, that explained its business model and revenue data. Spotify gets its content from major record labels as well as independent artists, and pays copyright holders royalties for streamed music. The company pays 7. Spotify for Artists states that the company does not have a fixed per play rate, instead considers factors such as the users home country and the individual artists royalty rate. Rights holders received an average per play payout between. Spotify offers an unlimited subscription package, close to the Open Music Model OMMestimated economic equilibriumfor the recording industry. However, the incorporation of digital rights management DRM protection5 diverges from the OMM and competitors such as i. Tunes Store and Amazon Music that have dropped DRM. Spotify encourages people to pay for music, with subscriptions as its main revenue source. The subscription removes advertisements and limits, and increases song bitrates to 3. The Spotify for Artists website claims that a Spotify Premium customer spends 1. U. S. music consumer who buys music not including those who spend 0 on music, with the annual value of the average U. S. paying listener identified as 1. The website also claims that a Spotify customer is 1. Spotify U. S. music consumer. Additionally, the website also includes a section entitled Spotifys impact on piracy as a response to the criticisms against the company regarding the exploitation of musicians. Spotify states that it has proven the theory given a free and legal alternative, people will pirate less, and uses Sweden, Norway, Denmark, the United States, Netherlands and the United Kingdom to provide evidence. For example, in Norway, the figure of 1. BBCMusic Week editor Tim Ingham wrote Unlike buying a CD or download, streaming is not a one off payment. Hundreds of millions of streams of tracks are happening each and every day, which quickly multiplies the potential revenues on offer and is a constant long term source of income for artists. Accounts and subscriptionseditAs of June 2. Spotify subscription types, all offering unlimited listening time, are The Premium subscription allows users to download music for offline listening, offers enhanced sound quality up to a 3. Spotify Connect functionality, and allows mobile users to listen to the exact songs they want instead of being limited to a shuffle only mode in playlists and full albums. In March 2. 01. 4, Spotify introduced a new, discounted Premium subscription tier for active students. Students in the United States enrolled in a university can pay half price for a Premium subscription. In April 2. 01. 7, the Students offer was expanded to 3. Spotify introduced its Family subscription in October 2. Premium subscription. Spotify Family was upgraded in May 2. MonetizationeditIn 2. Swedish kronor 4. In October 2. 01. Wired reported that Spotify was making more money for labels in Sweden than any other retailer online or off. Years after growth and expansion, a November 2. In 2. 01. 1, it reported a near US6. French Language Learning Software Torrent. Another income source was music purchases from within the app, but this was removed in January 2. In May 2. 01. 6, Spotify announced Sponsored Playlists, a monetization opportunity in which brands are able to specify the audiences they have in mind, with Spotify matching the marketer with suitable music in a playlist. In September 2. 01. Spotify announced that it had paid a total of over 5 billion to the music industry. In June 2. 01. 7, as part of renegotiated licenses with Universal Music Group and Merlin Network, Spotifys financial filings revealed its agreement to pay more than 2 billion in minimum payments over the next two years. As of 2. 01. 7update, Spotify is not yet a profitable company. FundingeditIn February 2. Spotify received a small investment from Founders Fund, where board member Sean Parker was recruited to assist Spotify in winning the labels over in the worlds largest music market. In June 2. 01. 1, Spotify secured 1. U. S. launch. The new round of funding valued the company at 1 billion. A Goldman Sachs led round of funding closed in November 2. In April 2. 01. 5, Spotify began another round of fundraising, with a report from The Wall Street Journal stating it was seeking 4. The financing was closed in June 2. Spotify raising 5. In January 2. 01. Spotify raised another 5. In March 2. 01. 6, Spotify raised 1 billion in financing by debt plus a discount of 2. IPO of shares takes place. The company was, according to Tech. Crunch, planning to launch on the stock market in 2. IPO in 2. 01. 8 in order to build up a better balance sheet and work on shifting its business model to improve its margins. AdvertisementseditSpotify offers advertisers ten different types of advertising formats, described in their Ad Formats as Branded Moments, Sponsored Playlists, Sponsored Sessions, Video Takeovers, Audio, Display, Overlay, Homepage Takeovers, Branded Playlists, and Advertiser Pages. These advertisements vary in size, type and user engagement. Branded Moments allow brands to tell their story over a series of sequential displays with 1. Sponsored Playlist is an exclusive one week sponsorship of Spotifys top owned operated playlists. Sponsored Sessions allow brands to offer their audience uninterrupted listening in exchange for a video view. Spotify vs Rhapsody vs Pandora vs Google Music vs Rdio vs Beats More How do we keep this site running This post may contain affiliate links the cost is the same to you, but we get a referral fee. Compensation does not affect rankings. Thanks Companies providing audio streaming grow daily, with them the services they are offering are growing as well. With audio streaming you have access to millions of songs, from your PC, from your mobile device or from your home audio system. When you pay a monthly flat fee you have access to millions of tunes. This flat rate often includes additional features such as creating your personal radio, sharing your playlists or reading reviews about newest releases. What is the best music streaming service where you can listen to as many songs as you like for a low flat rate We have researched some of the most popular streaming services and selected our picks for Best Music Streaming Service. Terminology and Common Features. Type of Streaming Music Services. There are different types of streaming music services Music Library These services offer unlimited access for a flat rate and partly for free. Generally these will have a library of millions of song titles, which you can browse and listen anytime and anywhere you like. All services offer access via browser or a desktop application and different mobile devices. These services are the subject of our review. Cloud Storage Services that offer cloud storage for your songs and the possibility to stream your songs anytime you like and anywhere you like. Theme Radio Stations These offer radio stations that stick to a specific theme that you can stream to your PC, home audio or many mobile devices. Streaming Music Devices. You can stream and listen your music from every PC, sometimes directly with the browser, sometimes you need a dedicated Windows i. OS Desktop application to browse and play the music. Also you can stream your tunes from mobile devices such as i. Phone, i. Pod Touch, i. Pad, Android Phones and Tables, Windows or Black. Berry. Not all services cover all mobile devices check our comparison table for an overview. Since this is fast growing business we recommend also to check the providers website for the latest update of supported devices. Some services also support home audio systems such as Logitech Squeezebox or Sonos and others. The number of devices connected to an account is limited, often two or three devices. And, important to know, in most cases you can use only one device at a time. A workaround is to listen to music in the offline modules, which is possible with i. OS and Android Apps. In parallel you can stream live music from another device. Search for Your Favorite Tunes Artist Radio Stations. You can search for your tunes by interpreters, titles or albums. Often the streaming services offer additional ways to search and browse for your favorite songs, for example you can create artist radio stations Rhapsody, Spotify, Xbox. You choose first a song and then create the radio station based on this song. Now the service searches similar songs and plays one after the other. If you like a song, you can press a like button, if you dont like it, you can jump to the next song. Editors Picks and Reviews. Several services offer also editor picks, reviews of new tunes or recommendations for selected genres. Sharing Playlists and Social Media. All services have social functions, where you can share your playlists and songs with your friends using the same service, or for example, Facebook. If you connect to a friend with Rdio, you can access even his whole play history. And with Spotify you can make a playlist collaborative, so that you can build the playlist together with a friend. Sound Quality. The highest quality music streaming services have is a stream of 3. Kilobits per second Kbps which is called the bitrate. If you stream music from your mobile device you probably prefer less bandwidth. OnlineOffline Mode. To put it simple, online mode is when you have the ability to connect to the Internet. So when youre at work or at home youre most likely online. Offline mode is basically the opposite. With this feature you dont need to have an Internet connection to playback songs or playlists. It works by downloading and storing a local copy of the songs in your library. This is useful for listening to music when you cant easily go online like on a plane, in the car, etc. It is also a useful feature to have if you need to conserve data usage for your broadband package or want to minimize bandwidth usage. Winner Spotify Review. Visit Website. Spotify is the winner of our best music streaming service review. The combination of a large library, good user interface, wide support of devices and great features made it our first choice. You can access Spotify with their own desktop software for Windows and Mac OS as well as mobile devices for i. OS, Android and more. The desktop software scans your local folders and imports playlists from i. Tunes and the Windows Media Player, so that you can play either tunes from the Spotify server or your local ones. Currently over 3. National Priority Programs Afghanistan Time more. Best of all, you can now use your Spotify account on all your mobile devices. Pros. Cons. Large library for unlimited music streaming. Clean and good user interface. Excellent audio quality 3. Kbps. Compatible with i. Pod Touch, i. Phone, i. Pad, Android, Windows and home audio systems. Offline mode. Great social media tools. Free mobile service. Podcasts and video clips. Taste Rewind feature plays songs from different decades. Login either via Mail or Facebook, if you login with both, it can cause troubles with your playlists. Price. Spotify free Listen on your desktop, laptop, tablet, and smartphone to millions of songs, interrupted by ads. Good to get a first impression, but soon you will probably get rid of the ads. Limited to 1. 0 hours per month. Spotify Premium 9. For the price of an album every month, you get the full fledged version. With the premium option you not only can stream unlimited to your desktop, but also to your mobile devices, using offline mode and home audio systems such as Sonos and Squeezebox. Also you get top sound quality with many tracks being provided at 3. Kbps. Spotify Trial Spotify offers a 3. Spotify Premium. 2nd Place Apple Music Review. Visit Website. Apple Music was launched June 3. Even though theyre new to the game, theyve quickly made it to the top. They are basically the newer version of Beats Music, which is now obsolete. Apple came out with their music streaming service because i. Tunes sales were declining and change had to be made. Perhaps theyll make their way to the top, but for now its too early to say. Pros. Cons. Includes Beats. Nba Live 14 here. DJ radio. Available in 1. Sync songs to offline mode. More than 3. 0 million songs. Apple has a great reputation. Comes pre installed on Apple devices. Price. Free 3 month trial9. Family Plan up to 6 users3rd Place Naspter Review formerly RhapsodyVisit Website. Napster formerly Rhapsody won 3rd place with its large library, good user interface, good mobile device support and the possibility to buy many songs also as MP3 files. Napster is compatible with a large selection of home audio systems and receivers. You can access Napster via any browser on the desktop, with a windows desktop application or with mobile apps for mobile devices with i. OS, Android and more. Currently there are more than 3. Pros. Cons. Large library for unlimited music streaming.