Spotify came to the US on July 14, 2011 and basically arrived at the biggest market it can ever be. Now, it has to scale and move quickly as most of the people that used to hide and use it are free and untangled by any legal fear.
Spotify is a Swedish DRM-based music streaming service offering streaming of selected music from a range of major and independent record labels, including Sony, EMI, Warner Music Group, and Universal.[3][4] Launched in October 2008 by Swedish startup “Spotify AB”, the service had approximately ten million users as of 15 September 2010;about 1,000,000 of whom were paying members.The service is, as of July 2011, only available in Finland, France, the Netherlands, Norway, Spain, Sweden, United Kingdom and the United States. (wikipedia)
Spotify created by a young Swedish geek has got good press since its debut, in US. Now it the time for that strategic partnership to happen. Sources have confirmed that Facebook is already moving to have a deal to have the Spotify music sharing in Facebook. If that happens, that will extend any chance of Google+ catching up. It is not going to happen anytime soon if Spotify eludes Google+.
Tekedia understands that Spotify owners and investors will like a huge platform like Facebook as the network effects favor them. So it will be a tough salesmanship for Google to have this platform. The best they can do is to offer to buy this company. But anti-trust issues can stop that as Google has its hands full now.
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But if Google stays there and Facebook takes over the platform with Zynga, it will find it very difficult to have people using Google+. It must figure out how to compete and get into this newest US arrival to have a chance of making it.
Google+ needs Spotify. These are key stats about Spotify which Tekedia has compiled:
Users: 10 million free; 1.5m paid
# of songs: 15m
Price: $5 per month; mobile is $10/month
Deals: all the four major music contents owners.
