Among the increasing number of ways to stream music legally (imeem, last.fm, youtube…), one service that has caught my eye is Spotify. At present a desktop application with ambitions to go multi-media, the service provides ad-supported (or ad-free for £9.99/month) European access to streamed versions from all the major music labels.
It’s iTunes-inspired interface is intuitive, with impressive artist profiles and even more impressive back catalogue. In fact it’s become something of a challenge to those I show the application to find an obscure band from their childhood not featured.
With physical music sales continuing to decline and digital sales not making up the shortfall, this service and others like it are going to accelerate that trend. Certainly, desktop-only and ad supported is not going to be for everyone, but it’s an acceptable trade-off for me, particularly if the service can go multi-media.
Interesting then to see a job posting on their site shows they are specifically looking for a Nokia S60 platform software engineer:
“We’re now looking for an outstanding software engineer who knows the ins and outs of C++ and the Nokia S60 platform like the back of his hand. You’ll help us make Spotify mobile and take part in changing the way people listen to music forever.”
Looks like Spotify mobile is coming soon.
My post on the launch of Google Chrome was one of the