ThisIsLeon.co.uk

A new service called Spotify aims to halt the illegal downloading of music by allowing users to stream content to their PC’s and Macs. The idea is pretty simple; rather than the user paying upfront for the music it is funded by advertising, and rather than downloading a physical copy which can be shared it is streamed.

The app is slick an works similar to iTunes in that playlists can be created. These playlists can be shared with other users as can individual tracks. In essence this is nothing more than a link as the music is not on a users machine (although music is cached and a P2P solution is used to distribute popular tracks between users to reduce the strain on the Spotify servers). 

After using Spotify for a few days i’m hooked. I have listened to both old and new tracks and with the last.fm style function found new artists. In fact talking of last.fm, the app even scrobbles what you listen to. There is even a greasemonkey script that searches Spotify from the last.fm site for music you may be interested in.

There are however a number of things that may hold Spotify back from being an iTunes killer. Apart from the obvious one of having an internet connection the fact is the music is limited to a Mac or PC. As I now have an Apple TV and use public transport to commute to work the amount of time that I listen to music on my Mac is reduced. Having apps for these platforms would ensure that the service was really useful. At the moment it is a nice add-on but not a complete solution. I have heard rumours that an iPhone version is on the way.