Share Joy | Vent Frustrations

In my last rant blog post about Spotify I spoke about a post by Harry Brignull over at ”90 Percent of Everything”. In his post Harry stated that there was a nasty user interface issue in Spotify’s desktop application when trying to purchase a song. While sitting on my couch on a Saturday evening, drinking some Aloe Vera juice while my girlfriend is watching The Closer on tv (and twittering with friends on her iPhone), I decided to give Spotify’s purchase function a little run for its money.

It was going to be the first time that I would be purchasing something from Spotify. My first step was accept their terms and conditions (see PDF file for contents).

Now, from what I could see, the window that popped up was different to the one Harry spoke about in his blog. This was a positve first step. The contrast made the terms and conditions clear to read. The text started with a short mission statement and how Spotify and 7digital have teamed up to provide the purchasing functionality in the desktop application.

Spotify has teamed up with 7digital to allow one-click purchase and download of high-quality MP3s.

This reassured me that I would be getting top quality for my Euro-buck. It also explained the presence of the 7digital logo in the bottom left hand corner of the window.

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After accepting the terms I was presented with a new form, where I would saw the track that I was about to purchase and where I would have to fill in my credit card details. The album cover is shown and what I found most promissing was the “320kbps” sign. It cleary showed me (again) that I was purchasing a “high quality MP3″. No problems, was it not for the fact that I am paying for my subscription with PayPal. Why not work on an integrated setup like iTunes? See, I do have some positive things to say about iTunes

An integrated payment system would, however evil this sounds, make it less obvious that you were purchasing a product. It could be a breaking-factor for potential buyers, but that is something that should be tested.

Anyway, I filled in my details, noticed that there was a form field label for ‘Country’ but no input field was to be found. I am sure that it wouldn’t be rocket science for Spotify and 7digital to find out that I am purchasing from the Netherlands.

Now, before I move on, I would like to point out an item that can be found in the preferences screen of Spotify. This item lets you set your ‘preference‘ to let the application ask you for your Spotify password prior to purchasing. I never selected this option. I like the additional safety offered and don’t mind entering my password, especially when it comes to spending money.

Why did I mention this? Let’s move on and you will find out… I filled in my details and clicked on ‘Pay with card’. To my surprise 7digital processed my purchase without asking my password while Spotify asked my whether I would want the application to ask me for my password with every purchase. Ouch! That was my first thought. Conflicting messages during a purchase is like dealing with a dodgy car salesman.

Let me be clear. I am not going to sit here and only point out bad things about Spotify in this blog post. I love Spotify. It has changed the way I experience music. Last night, I caught myself struggling to find the iPod application on my iPhone (I had removed it from the dock). I wanted to download the BBC’s Friday Night Comedy podcast. It only confirmed my suspicions that music on demand is going to change the way we interact and think about media, in this case music. Spotify is for the music enthusiast who:

• wants to download music when he/she wants
• wants to download to his/her mobile device without connecting to iTunes on your desktop**
• doens’t want to pay buckets of money (especially in the Netherlands) for an album/track digital or physical
• likes listening to different types of music genres
• doesn’t mind paying the small fee of €10 a month for the premium service (needed for mobile use)

** since the last iPhone app update, downloaden via 3G networks is possible, check your phone data plans!

So, what happened? In the screenshot above you can see that the track downloaded to my desktop application. The download started automatically and completed without any hassles.

Any tips for the folks from Spotify? Yes, I have seen a spike in visitors from Stockholm, home of Spotify’s R&D department. Go web analytics!

It is Satruday evening so I will just point out one functionality I would like to see. My playlists are ordered per album. I have one playlist titled ‘Miscellaneous’… pretty self explanatory, no? Well, there are only two ways to buy music from Spotify, per album or per track. There is no way to buy a selection of tracks, not even when they are from the same album. Maybe this is something the people at R&D can look into… tack

Jer White, another Spotify fan but from Edinburgh, responded to my last post. I mentioned that I would not find a certain album, The Cure’s “Join the Dots” being the album in question. He posted a link a claimed that the album was available. To my surprise it was, but after opening the link and clicking on ‘I have Spotify’ it was brought to my attention that it was for sale, but not in the Netherlands…

This brought back nasty flashbacks from Apple’s app store where not all apps were for sale in every country. I am sure this is all tied in to some legalities, but come on, this is 2010. Who is causing this problem? I called Spotify ‘the keepers of copyright justice’ in a previous post, but this problem is really making me itch. Is the mention ‘Not available in the Netherlands’ enough to ease my desire to get the album? Not a chance. This fact effects my experience, a little more explanation (transparency) would be appreciated.

Like the blog title said, still no yellow brick road (of course referring to The Wizard of Oz). Spotify is doing great. There are still a few kinks in the cables, but they seem to be taking their work seriously and seem to listen… or at least read my blogs about them

Now… I am off to bed for some CSI and then I will fall asleep later in the evening listening to comedian Jim Norton’s album Yellow Discipline on Spotify on my iPhone. Goodnight!