If they are so good, why don't they launch already? It's a fast moving world. My feeling is that by the time they launch, there will already loads of cooler things elsewhere.
In fact aren't there several music related YC companies that are probably way cooler than spotify? There was at least one where you put your music collection online and used a flash player to access it from anywhere from then on.
The only thing that could make spotify better than the rest would be some magic new formula for sharing with friends. I have not heard any details about that yet, though.
Sorry for the rant, but it gets a bit tiresome to hear "spotify is so cool" all the time without any details.
> used a flash player to access it from anywhere from then on.
That's exactly where it sucked. Usable and high usability are totally different things. Many applications(especially open source ones) are usable, meet the basic standards, but they are far from user-friendly. Personally I love spotify because of its intuitive UI, single standalone native executable and quality music streaming. Just like iPod or iPhone, there are thousands more powerful device out there, but iPod and iPhone just kicks everybody else's ass.
It's the same about μTorrent, at a time I can easily use a tiny sized, minimalistic and efficient BitTorrent client on my old 256MB RAM PC. It has all the function I need and no extra bells and whistles of other conglomerate download tools.
The only thing I expected better from spotify is it's radio engine, I hope it can overtake Pandora or Last.FM someday.
they have launched, I have been using spotify every day for a year now.
"your music collection online" - well, thats 90% of the reason spotify is so good, your music collection is all the music they have, which is a lot.
and streamed to flash? I have a hooky wireless connection, I can barely watch youtube without stuttering, but I can play spotify all day without a skip, its actually faster starting a track than itunes is.
as for sharing with friends, problem solved, collaborative playlists, and the fact you can play any music, completely solves this problem.
it hasnt launched in the us yet, its working on it, thats no reason to talk about how much cooler X is when you dont know what Y even is, I could complain about how hulu hasnt launched yet and how much it sucks, but I wont :)
In fact aren't there several music related YC companies that are probably way cooler than spotify? There was at least one where you put your music collection online and used a flash player to access it from anywhere from then on.
The only thing that could make spotify better than the rest would be some magic new formula for sharing with friends. I have not heard any details about that yet, though.
Sorry for the rant, but it gets a bit tiresome to hear "spotify is so cool" all the time without any details.