It seems you can’t surf anywhere without hearing it’s name. The new holy grail, the newest music nirvana.

Spotify is affectionately known as the ‘celestial jukebox’, an archive of every album in the world. It can stream virtually anything you want and pay the royalties for you. This cost is offset by advertising, which keeps it all free. However there is a subscription based advert free version for £9.99 or $16.62 at current exchange rates per month.

It isn’t over here yet, it operates in Europe only, but Spotify have just secured $50 million in finance to launch in the States imminently. Listeners in the UK, Sweden, Norway, Finland, France and Spain currently enjoy the service which has over a million subscribers in the UK alone.

Currently free invites are by appointment only to control bandwidth demands, and the waiting list is long. US based listeners had better keep their ears to the ground and get their applications in as soon as possible if they want to get in on the action when it launches at the end of the year.

The founder, Daniel Ek launched the site in Sweden as an alternative audio streaming option for legally minded listeners. All audio content is licensed and legal, with the royalties being paid for by advertising and paid subscriptions. The free service offers the same range and catalog of music, with adverts being served in between each track.

The paid subscription removes the advertising, and will soon offer other value add services such as better audio quality, exclusive releases and a cell-phone version of the application.

There is also a deal rumored to be in the pipeline with streaming audio giant Last.fm. Daniel said that there would be an announcement in a few days about a joint deal between the two outfits that would provide song recommendations. The idea is to make it much easier for listeners to find artists and songs they like.

It is precisely this kind of approach that is most likely to engage the file sharing community. The recent hard line approach by the music companies have turned many fans away from them because of their blatant capitalist stance on making money. Even many artists are distancing themselves from some of the announcements they have made. Such as convincing the UK government to consider banning people from the internet if they are convicted of file sharing.

This kind of incentive and economic model is most likely to engage the younger market who tend to spend the most on music. By offering a viable, free and legal alternative to downloading music illegally, Spotify hope to re-engage those put off by the record companies.

While still only available in Europe, this service will be coming to America at the end of the year. Exact dates and service offerings have yet to be announced, as have the potential subscription fees for paying listeners. Keep an eye out for the invites and get in there quickly when it arrives.

Tags: Spotify

This entry was posted on Tuesday, September 15th, 2009 at 7:32 pm and is filed under Sites, Tech News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.