Spotify , Pandora and Tune In

How to listen to music let me count the ways. Of all the media, be it movies, television, publishing or music it is clearly music that has been most changed.

Television has been changed by Tivo, Hulu, online viewing and On Demand. We now watch what we want when we want and if we like we just run through the commercials. Of course we have had VCR recording for over 25 years but recording on Tivo is now a simple process. When we watch TV has changed as we have more and easier control.

Publishing has changed. The impending departure of Borders and the questionable future of Barnes and Noble has made clear that bricks and mortar book stores are a dinosaur waiting to expire. Magazines can now be seen online, often for free. If one does subscribe they now need not wait for the mail as you can download and read on your Ipad or other tablet. In short Amazon, UPS and the digitalization of books is changing everything.

Movies are still movies but Netflix is changing the way we watch movies once they leave the theatre. Video stores are all but gone. Netflix and Amazon operate on the same principle. Convenience. Netflix now streams much of their programming thus taking the mail cost out of the picture.

In all three cases we can now choose what we watch but even moreso when we watch it. We no longer have to wait for the mail for a book or a movie, though if we do not mind that is better than going to buy it at a store. We watch the shows we want when we want via on demand or Tivo. We control the when by picking when to watch what we want.

Still music has them all beat. First Napster let us all share and get all we wanted free. That was for the consumer a very good service. As a business model it could not work. Apple created the itunes store and the ipod and soon we were off. Now we could carry countless songs, 14000 for my collection at last count, in a handheld device. When one considers vinyl, casettes, and CD's this is not to be overstated.

Now however we have the next wave. We have Itunes which you can buy from but now we also have Pandora whose IPO when it launches soon should create some new gazillionaries. Pandora lets you with a series of likes and dislikes create your own music channel. You do not pick specific songs but can certainly tailor music that you like.

Now comes the U S launch of Spotify. Huge in Europe they singed a deal with the four major American labels and landed about a month ago. What do they do? Simply let you listen to whole songs or albums or your choosing when you want. This is better than Pandora as you can pick the actual song not just the style of music.

Both Pandora and Spotify claim that after ten hours a month you will have to pay and as costs range from three to ten dollars a month that is a consideration. Still if someone told you that you could listen to anything you wanted for ten dollars a month even listening offline you might consider it less expensive than all those $1.29 purchases on Itunes.


Many other mini miracles are out there too. Amazon now sells music often undercutting Itunes price on files that will of course play easily on your Itunes. Tune In Radio is a fantastic Ipad app that lets you listen to any channel that supports them and for me that has been almost any channel I like. The possibilities are endless.


I am not a technology person but as with the other media forms in music we now have much more control over what we listen to. In a sense we could before of course, but cost could be a factor. When free becomes part of the equation even for only ten hours a month the rules are changed forever.

There is no going back.