Yesterday WordPress informed their bloggers we could add links to Spotify and Rdio to our blog posts and they would be converted into music players. Great! I’ve always wanted to review music and let people play it while they read the review. It’s very hard to describe music in words. Last night I posted a couple test posts and discovered there’s some real limitations to the endeavor.
I’ve also started a new blog site, Streaming Music, where I will branch off my writing about music. To give you some idea what I can do there I’ve created some tests of embedded music players.
Rdio only played 30 second clips to the people I got to try it, none of which were subscribers to Rdio. I’m going to try again here and see if I can find some subscribers and see if they hear more than 30 second clips.
You can join Rdio for free and get limited access to their music. You can also join Spotify for free and get quite a bit of free music, but you’ll need to install their software client. Rdio works with a web client.
Spotify won’t play at all unless you have the Spotify client installed. This is free, but requires people to go off and install the client. However, Spotify has millions of subscribers, and millions more free users. And they have users in Europe.
The next downside to the project is people outside of U.S. and Europe can’t use either service. All the legalities of online borders is a pain to deal with on the Internet where we’re really just one big world.
People have been sharing music on the Internet right from the beginning, but illegally. For $5 a month you can have legal access to gigantic libraries of music, so subscription music is a new kind of sharing that’s spreading fast. By WordPress offering linked music players should push this movement further, and hopefully one day I can put a song up to play on my blog and anyone in the world can hear it while they read my post.
If you don’t mind, leave a message and tell me if you can play music from Rdio or Spotify. Tell me if you only hear 30 second clips or the whole songs. Tell me if you are a subscriber of either service. And let me know what country are browsing from.
Spotify
Rdio
Auxiliary Memory 
No, Jim, I can’t get those songs at all from Spotify, unless I download their client. And I only get a brief preview from Rdio.
BTW, do you listen to Pandora radio? I don’t listen to music much, so that’s all I really need. And I like the way they do it. I just give a thumbs down when I don’t like a song – or, occasionally, a thumbs up if I especially like it – and most of the time, I get music I like.
But as I say, I’m not a big fan. It’s pretty rare that I listen to music at all.
If I end up reviewing music I’m going to spin it off to another blog. I think my blog is too schizophrenic now, with talk of SF, computers, gadgets, subscription music, etc. I think I’d have to make a blog just for Rdio and Spotify subscribers.
I’ve gotten more reports. Rdio subscribers have to read my blog with the same browser they use to listen to Rdio. Spotify users have to have Spotify installed. Thanks for the feedback Bill.
I do like Pandora by the way. It’s a great service.
I can’t get Spotify at all, and the Rdio goes for 30 sec. I like Joe Cocker, though.
ArtW from Toronto (Canada, eh?)
Thanks for the info. I hate that these services are restricted by country. If you love music I do recommend trying Rdio for a month or two. It’s only $4.99 (US) a month to stream to a computer. I’m sure Canada has its own unique companies too.