back to article Spotify adds Web2.0rhea

The first major Spotify upgrade sees it treble in size, turning into a cross between iTunes and Facebook. The goal is to make Spotify "your only music source". It's also, according to the company, much more "social". What the word "social" really means in today's Web 2.0 jargon is "two solitary people in two geographical …

COMMENTS

This topic is closed for new posts.
  1. EddieD

    Oh bollocks...

    Another good product succumbs to feature creep...and it will, like iTunes, be a forced update.

    I'm a geek, sorry, IT professional, I don't do "social" - I live in a cave and like it there, please leave me alone.

    Spotify lite, pretty please?

    1. Lutin

      Re "Oh bollocks..."

      If you don't like it, then just don't turn it on. If you don't want to do social, then don't.

      I won't be doing the whole facebook thing, but then that's not the only way to add users (friends). All you have to know is their spotify username to add them:

      http://www.spotify.com/uk/help/faq/social/can-i-add-any-spotify-user-to-my-people-list/

      1. Test Man
        Thumb Up

        Exactly

        The man talks sense here.

    2. JonW
      Stop

      What EddieD said

      Two reasons I went "Premium" on Spotify:

      1) I have no problem with paying for music and this was an excellent service.

      2) I got fed up with interruptions from Jonathan and eSuit2.0 or whatever they were

      I'm still happy with 1, but it sounds like 2 is in peril. I just want to listen to music, ffs - no one else likes the crap I listen too and I'm not particularly interested in what my friends listen to either. There's plenty of play list sites out there and, tbh, I found them too hard to use (Wheat/Chaff syndrome)

      /me gets back to the Happy Mondays

      1. nickrw
        Go

        @JonW

        Again, we come back to the "Don't enable it" point.

        I don't really want to use the 'social' aspects of this update, except for firing off tracks to one other person I know who uses it.

        Very pleased about external library integration, something I've been hoping for for a while.

        1. JonW
          Badgers

          @nickrw

          Fair point - I just hope it's not too intrusive and turn-offable.

          Oddly, I'm not wowed by the external lib integration - Spotify has more tracks than I'd ever manage to accumulate in a couple of lifetimes.

  2. PhonicUK
    Linux

    Now that's out of the way...

    Can we have an official Maemo client? Pretty Please?

  3. Tom 15

    If you're that much of a geek...

    Use the API and make your own app... of course, it only runs on Linux but all real geeks use that anyway!

    1. PhonicUK

      If only...

      The official API is for x86 Linux only (no ARM version) and doesn't support offline storage...

      Bit redundant really.

  4. Paul_Murphy

    I would like the local mp3 file playing.

    But not the other things - so I might as well stick to mediamonkey for playing my mp3's (until I re-encode all our CD's to flac or something else) and use spotify for the occasional music exploration.

    thanks for the trying to second guess what I want though guys and galls.

    ttfn

  5. James Dunmore
    Linux

    Native Linux

    No native linux client - again. Fail

    Sure it works under wine - although my friend said all the "web2.0 crap" fails under wine on ubuntu.

    When will iTunes, Spotify, etc. start releasing linux native clients. Poor showing.

  6. The Original Ash
    FAIL

    No thanks.

    I'll stick with it as it is, thanks.

    What? I can't? Oh well... Was nice while It lasted. Jamendo.com it is!

  7. kingosticks

    Could actually be good?

    Swapping between the Spotify application and the media player on my phone has always been pretty annoying. I would welcome the idea of integrating both databases into one interface - assuming it will be available on the mobile version. The facebook stuff sounds a little bit what like last.fm already does, except last.fm doesn't care what source scrobbled the track in the first place(?)

  8. Anonymous Coward
    Black Helicopters

    Local MP3 import..... to whom?

    The feature to index and play local music files is, on the face of it, useful. But it will also update your tagging info using Gracenote (that's quite neat) and who else gets to see your local playlists? I wonder if, not today, perhaps, but one day, the owners of Spotify (remember them) will quietly require that the local MP3 database gets turned over to them. And if some of those MP3s are purchased ones, they may be able to inspect the watermark to see if it was you who bought them....

  9. BongoJoe
    FAIL

    MP3?

    Does this mean that the music quality will drop? At the moment the quality of the Spotify stuff is far better than mp3 and this is the sole reason why I use it.

    If the level of Spotifyness drops to mp3 standard then I won't ever use it. All my CDs are ripped down to .flac and I would accept no less.

    And if there is an element of peer-to-peer shaing, even if it ends up encrypted, then surely this is illegal for the user to share his or her music because this is effectlvely publishing a copyrighted piece of work.

    Fail. Because this has, well, fail written all over it.

  10. Anonymous Coward
    Stop

    FOR GOD SAKE

    I DONT WANT SPOTIFY TO LINK TO FACE BOOK!!

    Who uses facebollox anyway, except the socially inept and those wiothout fingers to use the phone!!!

    It's REALLY tragic. About time these providers realised that nobody wants this and stop adding unneeded services.

    1. Wizzy
      WTF?

      You can turn it off.

      Are you really complaining because other people might use the software in a way that's different to the way that you use the software?

    2. Test Man
      WTF?

      Well...

      It won't if you don't provide it with a Facebook account. So what's the problem?

  11. variant
    Coffee/keyboard

    Spotify is dead, all hail despotify

    despotify FTW. If the new client is as shit as it likely will be, I will have no choice but to use an open one instead.. not that that's a difficult decision anyway!

  12. Steve Pettifer
    FAIL

    @Obviously!

    "Who uses facebollox anyway" about 350 million people worldwide some number of which are likely to be Spotify users I would imagine.

    I haven't used Spotify in a while now and this is the final nail in the coffin. I don't want another media library tool thank you - I already have to have WMP and iTunes installed and I don't even use or particularly want them; I use Media Monkey and like it very much indeed but I can't get rid of WMP and I need iTunes so I can have the cable drivers that allow MM to synch my iPhone. I really don't want another bloaty media library tool and as for the rest of the nonsense they've put in, I'm not interested in it. I already use last.fm and I have no desire to Facebook, Tweet or anything else what I'm listening to.

    Bye bye Spotify - the end is near seeing as you struggle to monetise as it is and I can't see this 'upgrade' helping much.

  13. TC

    Shareholders of Spotify

    As out AC post before points out - Sony and such own shares in Spotify. With this new joined up wizardry will there be anymore information being sent back to the servers about your local 'previously untouched by spotify' collection. It would be really hard to resist getting all that information so easily.

  14. Dave Murray
    Thumb Down

    Dear Spotify

    Don't try to copy iTunes. I won't let that bloated, bug ridden CPU hog near my PCs and if you go the same way I will be uninstalling you too.

    PS. Farcebook integration is not a feature, it is a security hole.

  15. Arnie

    Off or ON

    I've actually got a spotify sub built into my phone contract. What I dont want is bloody facebook.

  16. Jamie Jones Silver badge

    Any of you actually tried it??

    You can close all the boxes relating to extra functionality. You don't have to use the features.

    You don't want facebook integration? DON'T USE IT

    Honestly, the self-important nerdy comments on the register these days are getting as bad as on slashdot.

  17. Anonymous Coward
    Terminator

    just goes to show..

    What a bunch of nerdy server-side geek clones most of us are.. we're all stuck back in the days of lynx for web browsing and vi for editing...

    unfortunately for us, technology has moved on, and gone mainstream... and with it, our revered profession... two options, sit back and sulk (as we seem to do quite a bit on El Reg) or move with the times... as much as I hate it, this whole "social" bollox is where it's all going...

    soon, we'll all be "plugged into the collective" and we'll all have access to the most inane features of everyone else's lives, then it will be easy to force everyone one to do the same and think alike... "resistance is futile!" comes to mind...

  18. Anonymous Coward
    FAIL

    bad user interface experience

    Oh SNAP!

    Anywho, you don't need facefail when your only friends are imaginary and live in the basement with you.

  19. Lutin

    Geekfailgasm

    Is everyone clear that Spotify does not force you to use facebook, nor does it force you to import all your local MP3s?

    Everyone clear?

    Good. So can people stop yapping with this "nail in the coffin for spotify", "facefail", "farcebook" nonsense?

  20. Philbradley

    Really, it's not hard.

    If you don't like using the new functionality... *then don't use it*. How hard is that to understand?

  21. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Hm...

    am I the only one preferring the music to be on the local drive and listen to it using

    winamp/xmmp2/amarok?

    no need for this whole spotify bollocks. Apart from that they're in bed with the Content Mafia anyway, nothing to support therefore there.

This topic is closed for new posts.