Month: July 2011

QR codes capture a lot of attention and press. Why? I’ve had a lot of experience with them, and it seems consumer adoptions is still relatively low. The tech behind qr codes is simple, they are not driving significant revenue, and they really just point you somewhere. But perhaps I need to take my business hat off and look at this from an open source innovation perspective! Time and time again, it’s what you do with it that counts. Maybe it’s the fact that QR codes are an easy standard to get your head around and innovate with? Something about them seems to capture peoples imagination, and there seems to be profound curiosity with hacking this interface into our phones to create neat things. Not completely useless though, because its hard to not find some joy in this – art meets mobile tech! Enjoy!

All You Need to Know. Time Saver: this review is for the more experienced streaming music user, familar with the basics of a subscription streaming service. I’m a long time user of Rhapsody (not currently) Rdio (my main service) and MOG.

FREE:
Free service is usable, probably best example yet in a post myspace world. It’s also quick – program is fast, runs smooth.

PREMIUM

THE GOOD:
instant id and integration of your library – i didnt know it even happened.
Facebook – best integration, and truly fun to browse your friends playlists and hear full length music inside spotify. Hands on the best job at social and subscription to date.
Sharing – easy and fun across multiple platforms. Would like email option
Great Mobile integration
Synching seems to work great as well as the simplicity of sending tracks to other users
Fair Price point

THE BAD
The interface is over. Itunes already jumped the shark a few years back as an interface. Better is possible, and available –  play buttons are way too small at the bottom of the inteface. It should minimize like the itunes and rdio app.
Discovery and Navigation are tough. Not an engaging experience, more utilitarian, but not enough to be the front end to all my music.
Editorial. Needs it somewhere.
Vibe – there isnt one. Its virtual guys, add some tower records in. Both MOG and RDIO do this well.

Leave me a comment and question and ill give you an invite while they last!