3 Reasons Spotify May Never Become the OS of Music

Most of you have probably heard about the recent changes Spotify made to its platform to allow developers to create apps. In March, the social music service will be opening up an app store to help app developers get paid for their hard work. Last week, I read a really interesting article on the Guardian titled "Spotify: We have to turn ourselves into the OS of Music."

Spotify is a great platform for sharing music. I love the free version, but I think there are a few issues that will stop it becoming the best music streaming service. find more info

The first, being its relationship with Facebook which forces users to have to login via a Facebook account. People are still nervous about sharing their listening habits with others and being required to log in to another system. And, while some may argue you can easily switch to private listening mode, it still will continue turn a lot of people away. With VEVO's new deal with Facebook, it requires the same process and this is the reason why I won't be using VEVO as much as I have in the past.

This seems to be the way that Facebook does business, all or nothing. Spotify must either separate from Facebook, or create a version of Spotify that does not require users to log in via Facebook. Jay-Z had an album to come out a while ago called "The Blueprint 2: The Gift and The Curse," and in my opinion an all in deal with Facebook is definitely a 'gift and a curse.'

Second, Spotify and the recording industry must figure out a way to compensate artists more fairly for streaming music play. Major record labels love Spotify, because they own shares and the artists, well...While people argue that listening to streaming music increases physical album sales, I have been using Spotify since it launched in the U.S. and I have yet to purchase one album because I heard it on Spotify playlist volgers kopen.

Rhapsody and iTunes are still the dominant digital music services in America. They operate independently from Facebook. Both services will continue challenge Spotify as they are adding more social features. Rhapsody recently topped 1 million paying subscribers, making it the most popular premium music service in the U.S. iTunes failed to get a warm response from Ping, but in my opinion they will leverage their mobile platform to offer a socially integrated service that will challenge Spotify's dominance in the social music sphere.