3 ms·

It is as amazing a UX as people describe it to be. Believe the hype. I have never once had more than 100-200ms lag when playing/seeking a track. And we use it a

It is as amazing a UX as people describe it to be. Believe the hype. I have never once had more than 100-200ms lag when playing/seeking a track. And we use it a lot. And it has almost everything I've ever searched for on it. These days it is starting to become more likely for obscure, independently-distributed music to be there than not to be there. The data structure it puts your local music metadata index into is performant enough to search terabytes of mp3s without getting bogged down. No other music software I've tried can do this. And it streams in ogg. What more do you want.

rue 16y ago
Does it have discovery features, or do you need to know what to listen to? Assuming you have no friends to get suggestions from.
- Waywocket 16y ago
  No it doesn't. (Or if it does, then the UI needs fixing to make it discoverable)
  - JonnieCache 16y ago
    It has the "similar artists" metadata from http://allmusic.com http://allmusic.com embedded into the UI. They licensed it, along with the artist biographies. This data is expert-compiled and fairly comprehensive, but there is no statistically compiled data a-la last.fm. I imagine they are working on this functionality.
  - andreaja 16y ago
    It has a radio mode, which while not praticularly smart, does let you do some discovery. You can also use the last.fm integration to get recommendations off last.fm then listen to them on spotify I guess. Smart recommendations, however, are not the experience they're looking for. Spotify seem to be aiming for actual human recommendations. They're focusing much more on the social stuff, both in marketing and engineering hours, than they are on trying to tell you what music to listen to.
    - Waywocket 16y ago
      >It has a radio mode, which while not praticularly smart, does let you do some discovery. Oh right. That's not available in the free version or listed in the quick version comparison (though it is listed in the full comparison) which is why I'd not heard of it. >Smart recommendations, however, are not the experience they're looking for. Spotify seem to be aiming for actual human recommendations. They're focusing much more on the social stuff, both in marketing and engineering hours, than they are on trying to tell you what music to listen to. If I want that stuff, I don't get it using a computer; I talk to people. I'm coming to the conclusion that here - as with damn near everything - I'm "Not The Target Market(TM)" :'(. However it does seem that their target market is vast, so good luck to them.
      - JonnieCache 16y ago
        >If I want that stuff, I don't get it using a computer; I talk to people. The idea that Young(TM) people who post a lot of stuff on each others facebook profiles and the like don't talk to each other is a myth. They post the link, then next time they see the person in real life they have a conversation about the link. Having both given the link their full attention independently. When you're talking to someone IRL there is unlikely to be a suitable computer to hand, especially if the link points to some music.
Waywocket 16y ago
>These days it is starting to become more likely for obscure, independently-distributed music to be there than not to be there. YMMV. I use Spotify a fair bit, despite having a fairly crappy UI (not that it's too bad, just annoying in places), but there's no way in hell I'd pay for it unless at least one of the following things were true: 1) The premium version cost just £5 a month - The £10 it actually costs would cover a new album each month, which is a permanent asset worth more to me than being able to listen to their selection for a limited period. There is a £5 a month subscription, but it doesn't have mobile or offline mode, so it's near useless. Ironically, I might not feel that way if the premium option simply didn't exist, but putting them side-by-side looks like naked profiteering. 2) I could search for something and expect at least an 85% chance of finding it. The current 50%-ish is nowhere near good enough to pay that much for. I listen to a fair bit of European techno/rock/metal/industrial and those seem to be particularly weak areas. If you can have a conversation with a random person in a pub about a band, there's a good chance they have it I guess, but even then there are a lot of surprising gaps. For a random example, my last search was for something (anything) by Arcade Fire, but no joy. As you say, it is technically very well designed - very responsive, and even without offline mode it buffers well enough that the frequent dropouts in my crappy ADSL connection haven't caused any problems I can recall. I just feel that it's overpriced for such a limited selection.
- JonnieCache 16y ago
  >current 50%-ish I think the rave/electronica scene must be hotter than average on uploading their stuff to aggregators. It is starting to become standard for the artist-owned labels to be on there. I even see a good number of 'bedroom' producers without any record deal turning up now.
  - Waywocket 16y ago
    Could be - it would make sense for them as it's a good way to increase their exposure. I wonder if there might also be some correlation with whether or not Spotify is available in the artist's country.

rue 16y ago

Does it have discovery features, or do you need to know what to listen to? Assuming you have no friends to get suggestions from.

Waywocket 16y ago
No it doesn't. (Or if it does, then the UI needs fixing to make it discoverable)
- JonnieCache 16y ago
  It has the "similar artists" metadata from http://allmusic.com http://allmusic.com embedded into the UI. They licensed it, along with the artist biographies. This data is expert-compiled and fairly comprehensive, but there is no statistically compiled data a-la last.fm. I imagine they are working on this functionality.
- andreaja 16y ago
  It has a radio mode, which while not praticularly smart, does let you do some discovery. You can also use the last.fm integration to get recommendations off last.fm then listen to them on spotify I guess. Smart recommendations, however, are not the experience they're looking for. Spotify seem to be aiming for actual human recommendations. They're focusing much more on the social stuff, both in marketing and engineering hours, than they are on trying to tell you what music to listen to.
  - Waywocket 16y ago
    >It has a radio mode, which while not praticularly smart, does let you do some discovery. Oh right. That's not available in the free version or listed in the quick version comparison (though it is listed in the full comparison) which is why I'd not heard of it. >Smart recommendations, however, are not the experience they're looking for. Spotify seem to be aiming for actual human recommendations. They're focusing much more on the social stuff, both in marketing and engineering hours, than they are on trying to tell you what music to listen to. If I want that stuff, I don't get it using a computer; I talk to people. I'm coming to the conclusion that here - as with damn near everything - I'm "Not The Target Market(TM)" :'(. However it does seem that their target market is vast, so good luck to them.
    - JonnieCache 16y ago
      >If I want that stuff, I don't get it using a computer; I talk to people. The idea that Young(TM) people who post a lot of stuff on each others facebook profiles and the like don't talk to each other is a myth. They post the link, then next time they see the person in real life they have a conversation about the link. Having both given the link their full attention independently. When you're talking to someone IRL there is unlikely to be a suitable computer to hand, especially if the link points to some music.

Waywocket 16y ago

>These days it is starting to become more likely for obscure, independently-distributed music to be there than not to be there. YMMV. I use Spotify a fair bit, despite having a fairly crappy UI (not that it's too bad, just annoying in places), but there's no way in hell I'd pay for it unless at least one of the following things were true: 1) The premium version cost just £5 a month - The £10 it actually costs would cover a new album each month, which is a permanent asset worth more to me than being able to listen to their selection for a limited period. There is a £5 a month subscription, but it doesn't have mobile or offline mode, so it's near useless. Ironically, I might not feel that way if the premium option simply didn't exist, but putting them side-by-side looks like naked profiteering. 2) I could search for something and expect at least an 85% chance of finding it. The current 50%-ish is nowhere near good enough to pay that much for. I listen to a fair bit of European techno/rock/metal/industrial and those seem to be particularly weak areas. If you can have a conversation with a random person in a pub about a band, there's a good chance they have it I guess, but even then there are a lot of surprising gaps. For a random example, my last search was for something (anything) by Arcade Fire, but no joy. As you say, it is technically very well designed - very responsive, and even without offline mode it buffers well enough that the frequent dropouts in my crappy ADSL connection haven't caused any problems I can recall. I just feel that it's overpriced for such a limited selection.

JonnieCache 16y ago
>current 50%-ish I think the rave/electronica scene must be hotter than average on uploading their stuff to aggregators. It is starting to become standard for the artist-owned labels to be on there. I even see a good number of 'bedroom' producers without any record deal turning up now.
- Waywocket 16y ago
  Could be - it would make sense for them as it's a good way to increase their exposure. I wonder if there might also be some correlation with whether or not Spotify is available in the artist's country.