After many months of anticipating by countless Dutch music freaks (including myself), the day has finally come: Spotify is here! The Swedish music streaming service is available in The Netherlands as of today. Yours truly has been enthousiastic ever since I visited my friend in London who was using it while I was there: it's free, you can find almost any artist you're looking for and you stream the songs online, so no more excessive data storage! Although I was sceptical at first (sometimes it looks like cool concepts like these never seem to reach our small country), I've tried it today and I must say: the rumours are true! Spotify is great! So what's the business model? Here's a commercial that explains Spotify how works and positions it as the next step in the evolution of music:
Spotify is a programme anyone can download for free and install on their computer. With a personal login code, you can access your profile with your stored playlists and favourite tracks from any computer (if the software is installed, of course). There are three kinds of subscription possibilities: Free, Unlimited and Premium. Users can get access to Spotify for free, but then they'll hear advertisements between the songs. With an invitation for a free account you have unlimited access, without one you'll only get 20 hours per month. Unlimited users pay € 4,99 and get no adverts, and Premium members get several extras for € 9,99 per month: enhanced mp3 quality, access to Spotify on your mobile and exclusive content.
Once you've chosen your kind of deal, you can start listening to the 8 million tracks that are currently availble. Spotify also has many plug-ins to connect your listening behaviour to social networks, such as Last.fm or Facebook. Happy listening!
Showing posts with label communities. Show all posts
Showing posts with label communities. Show all posts
Tuesday, 18 May 2010
Monday, 19 April 2010
Saving the world was never this much fun
Treemagotchi is an online initiative that helps saving the world bit by bit. After a successful start last year, the trees are up for another season in the 2.0 edition. Users plant a virtual tree, which is guarded by a gnome, and by conducting simple and environmental-friendly actions they receive credits. With these credits, they can decorate their tree and 'buy' things for their gnome.
This is my tree! I planted it last week and after a few days, the first actions were available. On the basic level, users can earn 'beukennootjes' (credits) by cancelling the telephone book. This is basically a no-brainer, why would you need 500 pages of non-info on your doorstep every year when you can look up everything you need online? On the second, more hardcore, level one can receive more credits by downloading a special ecofont. This font looks just like a regular font, except it has lots of tiny holes inside the letters. Because of these holes, the font requires a lot less ink while printing. A perfect example of saving the environment and saving money at the same time.
Overall I think Treemagotchi is a fun, playful way of making normal people like you and I aware of the little things we can do to help the environment.
This is my tree! I planted it last week and after a few days, the first actions were available. On the basic level, users can earn 'beukennootjes' (credits) by cancelling the telephone book. This is basically a no-brainer, why would you need 500 pages of non-info on your doorstep every year when you can look up everything you need online? On the second, more hardcore, level one can receive more credits by downloading a special ecofont. This font looks just like a regular font, except it has lots of tiny holes inside the letters. Because of these holes, the font requires a lot less ink while printing. A perfect example of saving the environment and saving money at the same time.
Overall I think Treemagotchi is a fun, playful way of making normal people like you and I aware of the little things we can do to help the environment.
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