Tool of the week: Spotify

Lately there's been a lot of buzz around the new music service: Spotify, so I decided to review it for this week's tool of the week!

Spotify is an application on your computer, much like iTunes, except it allows you to stream any song you like. Spotify's main draw is it's social aspects: where you can see your friends favorite music and collaborate on playlists.  Spotify also has a feature where it recommends artists and albums to you based on what you've been listening too.

Spotify know's which songs you have on your computer, and automatically loads them into your library, however I haven't figured out how to listen to the songs off the cloud on other devices without purchasing the "Premium" version.  The "unlimited version" allows you to listen to as many songs as you'd like without ads, but honestly i don't even know where to begin with this feature.  I just want something that plays music i like!

I'm going to have to not recommend  Spotify.  I just don't see the point, and think much of it's functionality is already available in services like pandora, iTunes, Grooveshark, and Rdio.  I will be super stoked if google music improves... i'm used to Google releasing products that I initially hate and then love after a year or so of them working out the bugs.  I loved LaLa, an early online music service that was boughout and killed by apple.  For that reason, i have high hopes that  iCloud (to be released soon) will compare.

Mainly, I want syncing of my libraries over multiple computers and on my iphone.  Streaming my library off my phone will be sweet too (Since i only have an 8 gig phone)  I'd be curious to see what any of my readers think of spotify.  I have a couple free invites, so if you'd like to leave a comment about what you think of spotify, let me know and i'll get an invite your way!

Update: I recently used the free version of Spotify for a dance party and it was AWESOME. The only drawback was the occasional ad, but i would quickly mute spotify and put on a song on iTunes while the ad was playing.