If you haven’t yet tried out Spotify, you’re certainly missing out. For the majority, it’s free, and the library of music available to you is huge. But is it worth having this amount of free music if you can’t download it and you’re stuck with an advert every few songs? In my opinion at least, I believe it is.

A world of free music

Spotify’s library is bigger than you could ever think to fit into your iTunes, let alone your iPod. Every genre is represented with new releases sometimes appearing before their official launches. That in particular is a great option for music producers, as it gets the word out, lets people hear the new music, but offer’s them limited options to download and copy. Using similar features to iTunes’ Genius, finding new music that you might like works great and on many occasions has introduced me to new artists I would have never otherwise found.

The adverts just work.

Would you work for free? Didn’t think so. Advertising between songs offers Spotify it’s main source of income. Usually, advertising within applications is something that is hardly done well. In spotify, the audible advertisements are for the most part intuitive. When you’re listening to an album or playlist, the odd advert makes the experience feel like radio. This might just be me, but listening to the radio is an enjoyable past time that I wish I did more often. Sure, it’s only the adverts that create this experience, but for me it works. By advertising more music through the audible adverts, I’ve also found yet more artists worth a listen to – a second bonus for myself. The visual adverts aren’t as cleanly done, but with little time spent navigating the application itself, they’re not too much of a worry. I would prefer either no visual adverts, or to include them in the audible loops, but hey – someone needs a pay check at the end of the week, and we still seem to be clicking on those adverts. You do also have the option to pay a subscription for Spotify, which eliminates all the advertising if you would prefer, but I personally cannot justify the need.

Nothing portable?

That’s my only issue with Spotify. When the WiFi is turned off, so is my access to the world of free music. Rumors of an iPhone application being close to approval by Apple are floating around, but I’m not holding my breath for the perfect mobile solution. On various occaisions I have closed Spotify, undocked my iPhone and left my desk. I’ve looked through my music files on my iPhone only to remember that I was listening through Spotify and so I don’t own the tracks. Of course, I could buy the music direct through 7digital.com via Spotify, but for what it’s worth, iTunes is a simpler option for myself. If iTunes became partnered with Spotify for that reason, it may soften the blow. But for now, I’ll have to get used to separate libraries that depend on an Internet connection.