Music Of Our Heart Blog

I didn’t expect for the following sentiment to take place today, but as you will read, I had an “aha moment” with music software. I browsed over to Spotify‘s Web site this morning to learn more about their music cloud service which just reached our shores yesterday after a two-year wait.

I was skeptical about the Spotify offering as my first perspective was oh not another Web music service in a very crowded field of offerings too many to list, discern or mention. I must admit I was quite uplifted by what I discovered and interpreted about Spotify.

I was motivated further to explore Spotify as my car CD player has stopped working and I need to replace it soon. So I have started playing the iPhone in the car as a substitute.

I have been a loyal Zune software subscriber since its start in 2006. I have accumulated 5,913 listens to Zune in that time frame. I subscribe to Zune Pass at $14.99 a month, which also gives me 10 free songs a month. But Zune is starting to crumble as a solution and has not shown much innovation of late. Also it is having a problem downloading albums I buy in sequence, skipping songs in their logical order, which is a hassle. Zune is failing to keep up with the times, c’est la vie.

I have been eagerly awaiting Zune to supply a couple of  ”promised” features which I doubt are ever coming in spite of Microsoft’s Cloud initiative.

Microsoft Zune is failing to live up to my expectations as a Web music service offering. The most notable Zune technology failure is the lack of social networking capability and integration Microsoft “does not supply”. Sharing has very little fellow Zune subscriber participation.  It is a promise in principle unfulfilled. Microsoft failed to innovate the music software sharing options I expected them to carry out, such as more immediate Web music locker sharing, Facebook integration etc. It doesn’t seem that Microsoft will ever leverage its 1.6% investment stake in Facebook to become the “Facebook Music” solution.

It is very clear that Spotify has secured that leadership role and is declared “Facebook Music”. When Mark Zuckerberg is endorsing your product solution you have “arrived”.  Spotify is destined to conquer the American music subscriber’s market with its ease of use and focused integration with Apple iTunes, Windows Media Player files (that’s how I will reuse my Zune music library and cut the cord with Zune Pass…).

“Spotify is so Good”
Mark Zuckerberg, CEO and Founder of Facebook

I purchased a Spotify Premium Service subscription today to get a better idea of what Spotify offers a music subscriber. I like what I am experiencing thus far. Spotify has indeed done their homework with their technology edge.

I really like that for $9.99 a month  with Spotify I have 13 million songs readily at my disposal with the  iPhone Spotify cloud app. It was effortless to search and hear music through the Spotify Cloud to my iPhone. I rather like how they smartly randomized Neil Young’s catalog for me as I drove home from work this afternoon. Zune can’t do that….

As the Microsoft Cloud forms I don’t see the Zune solution leveraging the music locker experience effectively or at all for that matter.

I will save $5 a month with Spotify versus Zune Pass and I can have very high quality stream/sync functionality.

Spotify you are my new Web music subscription service. Microsoft’s Zune say hello to the curb. Oh and Microsoft speculation about XBox Music doesn’t move me…..