A couple of months ago, I had attended a Blog Conference with our own Skeleton Pete and we met two nice girls from Finland during one of the rest breaks from the adventuring.  The obvious discussion of music came up given the nature of what Pete and I do and these girls country and then one of them showed us her Spotify account. While I had not yet heard of it, Peter had, and what it amounts to is another music streaming service such as the once discussed on the PiercingMetal Blog Amazon cloud, the ICloud and the Google Music Player.  Whew, its now officially getting a little difficult to keep up with these based on the amount that keep popping up for us to examine.  I bet you readers thought you already had your hands full with the constant shift in Social Networking outlets didn’t you?  Welcome this new medium to the mix and one that clearly will not be going away any time soon.

Continuing along, this service is now available in the USA and is no longer only there for the European side of the Atlantic.  Some of you just got very excited about this I am sure.  Much like the other streaming services available to the public this DRM medium offers a number of different plans.  Once you get an account set up you need to download the software to your computer and then you can browse through millions of tracks.  You can set up an unlimited usage plan for about $10 a month or stick with the economy flavored free plan like I will plan on doing.  Personally I don’t need this since I get my new music serviced to me digitally by those who wish me to review it and have built an incredible music library over the years since becoming a music scribe.  You might be of the same mindset thanks to the financial state that most of us are in but be aware that if you plan on using Spotify on your mobile device (Smartphone and Tablet etc) that you will need a paid for premium account.  Mog works the same way if I am not mistaken.  I use Mog very sparingly in my reporting outlet and only moderately when it comes to researching music while some of my friends are absolutely taken to the moon by the service and what it provides.

So the question remains about whether or not this is good for the music industry and the bands that folks like us are all trying to support with our efforts in photography and writing.  If their work is paid for after numerous downloads or plays then yes this is fantastic but if it is not a fair exchange then I guess it is not.  You will have to be the judge on that.  It does look like everything will soon be going to digital route as shelf space for CD’s is almost non-existent in brick and mortar stores leaving only online outlets like Amazon.com and CD Baby the means to get an actual CD.

Click the logo above to access their site and to begin the process of setting up an account if you have interest in doing so.  If you want to learn more about the Spotify company brand just click their Wikipedia entry HERE.