spotify

You know something is good when it feels illegal. Such is the case with Spotify, the on-demand music-streaming service that seems too good to be true--or, certainly, too good to be free. Yet, here it is, the "celestial jukebox" we've been dreaming of since the days of illegal gorging on the original Napster. It's called Spotify, it's finally available in the U.S., and music fans have reason to cheer.

What it does What Spotify does is so simple and seemingly harmless, it's actually a sad comment on humanity that it counts as a … Read more

After months of delays, Spotify is now available in the United States. CNET's Donald Bell is taking an in-depth look at the online streaming service, but that doesn't mean the rest of us don't have a few things to say about it.

As with tastes in music, we're all coming from different viewpoints: I live in a nice little town outside of London and have been using Spotify for about a year; Rafe Needleman is our start-up guru; Dan Ackerman and Lori Grunin offer their takes as music fans who happen to be experts on PCs … Read more

Onkyo's network AV receivers already have an extensive suite of streaming music services and it's about to get better. Onkyo announced today that it will be adding the recently launched Spotify streaming music service to its network receivers via a firmware update. The update is already available for the TX-NR609 (which we reviewed last month), with the rest of its 2011 networked-enabled receivers to follow. Streaming Spotify on Onkyo receivers will require a premium Spotify account, so you'll need to pay $10 a month to access the service.

The Onkyo TX-NR609 is the first AV receiver we'… Read more

Spotify has its first groupie in Motorola Mobility.

On the heels of Spotify's official U.S. launch, Motorola said today it was the exclusive mobile device and tablet launch partner for the much-anticipated--and delayed--music streaming service. Motorola said it plans to offer its customers "coveted early access" to the service, and will launch a number of marketing campaigns in the coming weeks to promote the alliance.

Spotify will launch with an invite-only beta stage before opening the service to the public. Motorola customers who participate in specific marketing campaigns found on social media sites and at retail … Read more

After a long crescendo of promises and speculation, Spotify has launched in the United States at last.

The music-streaming service allows users to stream what it says are "millions" of songs both from their computers and from mobile devices. Spotify relies heavily upon playlists, which users can create as soon as they boot up the service. Users can search through the company's tracks and simply drag and drop songs to a given list. The service also allows people to import MP3s to bolster the music player's offering. Once the playlists are created, they can be accessed … Read more

Editors' note, Thursday 5:06 a.m. PT: Spotify's Web site now says that the service has arrived in the U.S. Our story on the actual launch is here: "Spotify (finally) launches in the U.S."

Following up on last week's announcement that it would soon be opening up to U.S. users, popular music-streaming service Spotify said Wednesday that its stateside launch is happening Thursday morning.

"Spotify, the award-winning digital music service loved by millions of Europeans, will become available tomorrow morning in the United States by invitation and subscription," the company … Read more

On today's show, Google already runs out of disk space for Google +, and we're running low on disk space ourselves. The first Google eBooks integrated e-reader is landing soon, Apple takes another run at HTC, and we're discovering the most evil cities on the Internetz. --Molly

Links from Thursday's episode of Loaded:

Facebook unveils video chat features

Amazon offers unlimited cloud music storage

Spotify makes official U.S. launch

Civ World comes to Facebook

Mac Blu-ray a possibility now

Motorola Droid 3 launch date

Today we listened in on Mark Zuckerberg's awesome announcement which we found to be not so awesome. Skype is being integrated into Facebook but I think we are more excited about Spotify finally coming to the U.S! Apple Passes RIM In U.S. Smartphone Market Share and Microsoft wants Samsung to pay a smartphone fee of about $15 for every phone it makes. Yikes! And Japan Discovers Rare Minerals in the Pacific Seabed. All this as well as your calls and emails on today's Buzz Out Loud.