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Spotify

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Spotify
Original author(s)Spotify Ltd
Stable release
0.3.11 (revision 43065)
Preview release
Android8.6.96 / December 30, 2021; 2 years ago (2021-12-30)[1]
iOS8.6.96 / December 31, 2021; 2 years ago (2021-12-31)[1]
Operating systemMicrosoft Windows, Apple Mac OS X (Unix possible through Wine (software))
TypeMusic
LicenseProprietary
Websitehttp://www.spotify.com/

Spotify is a Sweden-based proprietary music streaming program, which allows instant listening to specific tracks or albums with almost no buffering delay.[2][3] Music can be browsed by artists, albums or created playlists as well as by direct searches. Although it is not possible to save the streamed music for use outside the application, a link is provided to allow the listener to directly purchase the material via partner retailers.[4] The program/service is only available in parts of western Europe.

History

Spotify has been developed since 2006 by a team at Spotify AB, Stockholm, Sweden. The company Spotify was founded by Daniel Ek, former CTO of Stardoll, and Martin Lorentzon, co-founder of TradeDoubler, in Stockholm, Sweden. The headquarters is located in London, and research and development is located in Stockholm, Sweden.[4] Spotify has more than one million users.[5]

Technical function

The content of each client's cache is summarized in an index which is sent to the Spotify stream hub upon connecting to the service. This index is then used to inform other clients about additional peers they can connect to for fetching streamed data for individual tracks being played. This is accommodated by each client, upon startup, acting as a server listening for incoming connections from other Spotify users, as well as intuitively connecting to other users to exchange cached data as appropriate. There are currently no official details from the developers about how many connections and how much of a user's upstream bandwidth the Spotify client will use when streaming to other users; the Spotify client offers no way for the user to configure this.

Cost and availability

Spotify is freeware and can be downloaded from the Spotify website in three ways. It is available free to use in many countries (with some notable exceptions) and is funded by advertising played periodically by the Spotify player at intervals in between songs, adverts also occasionally appear in Spotify's graphical interface. However, unless the user pays a monthly cost of 9.99 € (approximately $12 USD, £10 GBP, 99 NOK or 99 SEK), there will be advertisements in the client window and/or in between songs. When a member pays the fee, the member will automatically have the status "Premium user"; this allows the member to listen to previews and news before non-premium users. A user may also purchase a "day pass" for 9 SEK (approximately $1.1 USD, £0.70 GBP, 9 NOK or 0.8 EUR) for 24 hours of ad-free music playback (essentially 24 hours of the premium service).[6]

Spotify Premium is available in Austria, Belgium, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Italy, The Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Sweden, Spain and the UK. The free version is only available in Sweden, Finland, the UK, France and Spain, and in some of those countries an invitation is required.

A user must set up an account in order to use the software. This account can be used on several computers, but can only play music at one computer at a time.

As of February 10, 2009 Spotify is available to anyone in the UK without the need for an invitation.[7] The service is not currently available in the United States or Canada, Spotify's Daniel Ek has expressed a desire to change this but no time frame has been given as of yet.

System requirements

The system requirements are at least Mac OS X 10.4, Windows XP or a newer operating system. It is also possible to run the program in Linux and FreeBSD using Wine, and the company gives advice on how to get the best results with Debian GNU/Linux. [8] The cache size can be limited by the user and the memory location of cache can be chosen. At least 1GB of free space is recommended for the cache.

Features

The user has access to tracks of all major labels and numerous smaller labels, with the repertoire being constantly extended through new labels, although bands such as The Beatles, Metallica and Pink Floyd do not appear.[2]

Tracks can be found via search for artists, titles, albums, genres or year of publication.

Users can set up playlists and share them, or edit them together with other users (see collaborative software). For this purpose the playlist link can directly be dragged into an email or an instant messaging window. If the recipient follows the link, the playlist will be downloaded into the Spotify-client of the recipient. Like normal links, the playlist links can be used everywhere. The same principle also works for single tracks, which can be used via drag and drop on applications and websites at will. [9] There is a number of websites for sharing of Spotify playlists and songs, for example Spotyshare.com and Spotylist.com where users can share, rate and download them. [10]

The application features Last.fm integration which allows the current track to be scrobbled without making use of the Last.fm software.

Future directions

An iPhone Spotify application is currently in development[11], which would allow users to access the music catalog and stream music over Wi-Fi. A version for Symbian S60 is also thought to be in development.

Unofficial application

An unofficial, free software, client is also avaliable, written in C, called Despotify[12], and released by anonymous programmers. Despotify is a text-based client that works with any operating system that in turn supports CoreAudio or PulseAudio, which means native support for Linux, Solaris, FreeBSD, NetBSD, Mac OS X and Windows[13]

See also

References

  1. ^ a b "Announcing Alpha & Beta Programs". community.spotify.com. December 4, 2018.
  2. ^ a b "Welcome to nirvana". The Guardian. 2009-01-16. Retrieved 2009-01-28.
  3. ^ "Musiktjänsten Spotify lanseras". Dagens Nyheter. 2008-10-07. Retrieved 2009-04-24.
  4. ^ a b "website: background information". Spotify. 2008-05-18. Retrieved 2009-02-03.
  5. ^ Spotify reaches one million users at Spotify blog
  6. ^ "website: Products overview". Spotify. Retrieved 2009-02-03.
  7. ^ "Spotify now available to everyone in the UK". Spotify. 2009-02-10. Retrieved 2009-02-13.
  8. ^ Spotify under Wine, Spotify Ltd
  9. ^ "FAQ: Share music". Spotify. Retrieved 2009-02-03.
  10. ^ "Blog: Sharing is good, share your spotify playlists". Spotify. Retrieved 2009-02-16.
  11. ^ http://uk.techcrunch.com/2009/02/23/the-day-itunes-died-spotify-is-working-on-a-killer-iphone-app/
  12. ^ The web site of Despotify
  13. ^ Despotify FAQ

External links

Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Spotify&oldid=274960024"