Why Pandora Shouldn't Worry About Spotify... Yet

Image courtesy of epicinfo.net.

As a frequent user of Pandora, I was excited to find an invitation to the new music service - Spotify. I started using Spotify earlier this week and found it to be a great mesh of iTunes and Pandora. I could find music and build lists similar to what I would do in iTunes or in the now defunct Winamp, but I didn't have to pay for a song just because I wanted to listen to it once.

I started off playing the suggested "USA" Spotify playlist. While most of the songs played, I had a few problems with songs that simply wouldn't load and wouldn't play, so I skipped over them. In addition, I then also had to go find new music. I was determined to stick with Spotify despite these small problems, until I added one whole album and only two of the songs in the list would play. I know of at least one other person who had this problem, so we'll see if it continues.

Beyond that, I thought Spotify had some great potential, once I took the time to build out an excellent playlist or the service becomes popular enough that I can just steal someone else's playlist. Until one or the other occurs, I've happily gone back to Pandora. Yes, Pandora, with it's sometimes crappy, but continually playing music, and it's creative advertising.

Spotify also has a problem in it's advertising model. I know it's early, but I spent two days looking at the same ad and I feel bad that my accidental click on the ad may have led someone to believe I cared about obtaining a kit used to roll ... well, legally it would be used for cigarettes.

So, while Spotify invites "are like gold," as the site claims, they still have some bugs to work out and the service is much more time consuming than the easy going Pandora. And still, while few people are a fan of ads, Pandora has done something special with their integration of their ads. Pandora's core audience, those busy professionals who don't have time to amass large playlists, will still be using Pandora.  Spotify will simply appeal to a younger audience, all of whom seem to have more time on their hands and a library-like index of music to pull from their heads.