Spot On! Online jukebox Spotify streams free music and shares it with friends

摘要

SPOTIFY, THE SWEDISH-BORN CULT HERO OF music-streaming services, wants to play you a love song. After years of legal wrangling, the popular European site finally made its U.S. debut on July 14, entering a massive market that is already saturated with music offerings-one of the many reasons most newcomers flop. (Anyone remember Lala.com?) But what makes Spotify more appealing than iTunes is that you can listen to its vast song collection for free. And what makes it more appealing than Pandora is that you can easily share playlists with your friends. Basically, Spotify is what would happen if Facebook had a baby with Napster, except that it's completely legal and comes in the form of a desktop application that can follow you anywhere, streaming music even when you're offline. If this all sounds too good to be true-free access to a library of 15 million tracks!-you guessed correctly that the world's largest music-subscription service comes with a catch.