Originally Posted by batchain (Post 35270977)

As you said a little dated. At last count there were one million paying subscribers.

http://www.spotify.com/uk/blog/archi...n-subscribers/

Originally Posted by Chad (Post 35270979)

I wonder how many UK based subscribers they have?

I think it would be great for Virgin customers if they can access the free version of Spotify, even if it means they will only be able to listen for a maximum of 10 hours a month, and can listen to any single track no more than five times.

Originally Posted by Chad (Post 35270952)

I'm not really sure what to make of this deal. It's great news for current Spotify customers with TiVo but will this really appeal to the masses?

Through Virgin I've already got access to 38 radio stations, 15 dedicated music TV channels and thousands of music on demand videos. I've got thousands of legal music tracks on my PC, Xbox and ipod plus can watch thousands more music videos on Youtube via my Wii and PC. I've got all the music I need, in fact probably more music than I could possibly want and I'm a real music fan.

I'd never pay between £4.99 to £9.99 to listen to songs via my TV. Music via my TV needs to include the music video or I'm simply not interested. Sure if you subscribe to Spotify there's plenty you can do with the music via your PC too however let's not forget that not every Virgin TiVo customer has the internet.

It's great to see Virgin thinking outside the box, but for me this is a little too niche. You need to have TiVo, be a real big fan of music and be prepared to shell out an additional monthly subscription charge for this to appeal to you. I suppose once the Digital Economy Act comes into force, and Virgin start monitoring illegal downloads, this service might just become more appealing to some of our friends who choose to download their music from illegal sources. I've got a feeling Virgin are going to get very tough on peer to peer, torrent and newsgroup users real soon.

Originally Posted by muppetman11 (Post 35271197)

Brilliant post , my thoughts exactly. This is superb news for existing spotify customers but how many non spotify customers will want to pay extra. Will this possibly signal the end of Music OD.

Originally Posted by davidthornton (Post 35271201)

How many non Spotify customers will want to pay extra depends on what the VM Spotify offerings include. The Premium (which costs £10pcm) offers streaming at a higher bitrate, offline music on iPhone and integation with Sonos. Some might be prepared to pay for it because now they can get it on their VM bill at a probable discount, rather than going through Spotify directly.

I do see music subscription services working in the future, although Sky couldn't make theirs pay, because managing a music collection is time consuming and there's the potential to lose the music. All one really needs to own/have access to is their playlists and a working Internet connection. I suspect the same will apply to films in the future. The customer will never actually have a copy of the content.

Originally Posted by passingbat (Post 35271234)

Subscription levels may depend on how many people have got their tivos hooked up to stereo/AV amps and speakers. Listening to music through the average TV speaker wouldn't be worth the extra cost for me personally.

Originally Posted by Chad (Post 35307404)

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/09...ent_platforms/

"New sign-ups to Spotify must be Facebook members - the non-Facebook world will have to go somewhere else."

So the big question is, how does this impact on the deal between Virgin and Spotify, if at all? If someone is interested in getting Spotify via Virgin, surely they won't be forced to open a Facebook account first?

It also looks like people with a Smart TV, with access to the Facebook app will be able to access their Spotify account / tunes via the Facebook website.

It would appear selling Spotify as an app to TiVo customers is going to be more challenging than Virgin thought? Surely this move by Spotify actually devalues the deal agreed with Virgin a few months ago. Could Virgin renegade on the deal due to this move by Spotify?

Originally Posted by passingbat (Post 35307473)

I'd be very surprised if you had to be a f/b member to use spotify. The record companies, who really run spotify, won't want to lose out on potential customers IMHO.

Originally Posted by BenMcr (Post 35307504)

Actually it's true http://www.pcworld.com/article/24064...ing_users.html



How this affects the Virgin deal I haven't a clue

In regards to record companies losing out though, there are a lot more Facebook users than there are Spotify users. As Spotify listening will now appear in the FB timeline, it's more likely increase rather than decrease usage, but by a different crowd that do at the moment

Hopefully there will be a middle ground reached

Originally Posted by Chad (Post 35307505)

Sorry Passingbat, not sure what's happened there. Cheers for the link Ben. Alternatively the story is covered here too:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technolog...-the-race.html

Originally Posted by passingbat (Post 35307616)

I said on another thread that we7.com would have been my preference for VM to do the deal with; think that even more now.

Originally Posted by BenMcr (Post 35307619)

Except they wouldn't based on We7 have just done to themselves