Since Sean Parker’s Napster endeavor, he’s been trying to find a successful way for people to stream online music easily and legally.  Enter Parker’s Spotify, the social media optimized, extremely popular subscription-based streaming service.  The program allows people to listen to an extensive selection of music for a small monthly fee after a recently-extended 9 month free trial.  It began in Europe 4 years ago and debuted in the U.S. last summer.  It has since enjoyed massive success thanks to its library of 16 million songs and seamless integration with Facebook.

Spotify is revolutionizing how apps integrate with Facebook.  Everyone, even those without the app, can see exactly what friends are listening to on Facebook.  Users who have the app can share songs with their friends just by dragging and dropping a song into their friends inbox.  In addition to easy sharing, Spotify also allows those who are embarrassed by their occasional Backstreet Boys indulgence to choose what they want to share with their Facebook friends.  This app really caters to all types of social media users.  Those that want to share everything can, and others are able to keep their activities private.

Spotify also recently announced it will launch brand apps sometime next week.  These apps will allow brands to create their own playlists to reach their audience in innovative ways.  AT&T will have an app called “Surround Sounds.”  The app will plot songs on a map according to where they were recorded or performed.  This app will be particularly relevant to those interested in their local music scene.  Other brands that will launch apps include McDonald’s, Reebok, and Intel.  Not only will the apps enrich the platform, Spotify’s creators are hoping the new brand apps will attract advertising dollars to supplement the subscription-based revenue stream.

It’s exciting to see an application taking advantage of the inherently social world of music.  There are still a few kinks that have to be worked out.  Despite the seamless Facebook integration, some users have complained that it’s difficult to interact with friends that aren’t on the largest social network.  I would also like to see more Pandora-like features that recommend music or just automatically play similar artists and songs.  I don’t enjoy having to constantly choose what I’m going to listen to.

Have you hopped on the Spotify bandwagon?

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