Re:Spotify vs the US Competition
by greenie on Friday July 15, 2011 @05:07PM
(#2769100)
Unless the US version of Spotify is drastically different from the European version, discovery on Spotify is excellent in my opinion. The Radio feature does exist (although it's not one of Spotify's strongest features) and when you're on an artist page there is a tab to view related artists. There is even an radio tab on the artist's page which will play music from related artists.
[ Parent
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The radio feature is not available in the US.
"The lack of a radio feature for the time being is a factor of licensing agreements with the rights holders but it will eventually be available." http://getsatisfaction.com/spotify/topics/radio_mode_missing...
That's a shame for now, but the fact that related artists are presented very clearly (and you're able to quickly see their most popular songs) doesn't make discovery as bad as the article is claiming. I find myself listening to a lot more different music with Spotify than other discovery services such as Last.fm.
Pretty much every service out there has related artists. But the US version of Spotify has only that.
There is also friend's playlists, which I find very useful to discover stuff.
Amounts to browsing random peoples' music. Compared to MOG's discovery features, MOG's is much better. You might get lucky if a friend just happens to find lots of new music you like though.
You can add Spotify-users to your friends list too, you don't need to be Facebook friends.
To add me, go to spotify:user:parbo or http://open.spotify.com/user/parbo and click the "Add Pär" button.