So it's been two weeks now since Facebook's F8 conference. If you watched it, you undoubtedly caught the mention of Spotify's integration with Facebook. If you didn't watch it, then you've probably seen more than a few Newsfeed Posts mentioning the music that your friends have been listening to on Spotify.
- btw...If you haven't noticed F8 or the Spotify posts, then you better step it up a little! You're reading an article on a site called "The World Changing", so you're clearly the Early Adoptor in your circle. It's your responsibility to help the World learn about new things! So after you finish reading this article, get back to trying new things and telling your friends about them.
But back to Spotify...
We saw this happen once before. A little more than a decade ago, Napster changed the World of Music with it's peer-sharing music download service. Until two weeks ago, it appeared that the key to Napster's popularity was Free Music. It's clear now, that it wasn't that at all. Free music was an amplifier to their success, there's no denying that. But at the core of Napster's success, was the fact that Sean Fanning offered us the ability to look in a folder containing all of the songs a person liked. For the first time ever, we got exposed to new music through individual music listeners' opinions instead of because of the opinions of Radio Executives.
Back then 'Friend' wasn't [yet] an Internet thing... we called them 'Peers'. In 1999, I vividly remember searching for peers that had particular songs that I wanted. When I found them, I would check out the other songs that peer had in their library. When someone had a large number of songs that I recognized (and liked), I would look for other music that I hadn't yet heard. In the short amount of time that Napster service existed as a free service, my musical taste broadened wider than it would've after ten thousand years of radio listening.
Spotify is finally bringing that back to the web. This is the best thing to have come to Music Listening since 1999. Check out the latest Spotify promo video below.
