For those of you who have not yet discovered Spotify, I emplore you to do so. Spotify is simply the best thing that has ever happened to music.
It's a streaming music service that allows you to use it on your computer and your smartphone depending on what plan you choose. But it doesn't stop there.
Even the free version allows you to browse/search for artists. You can also add artists/albums/tracks and make your own playlists. And, if you have your own music on your computer (managed by iTunes or another app) you'll see those tracks in Spotify and you can add them to playlists too.
Spotify will interface with iTunes and Facebook. You can see what your friends are listening to and make suggestions or playlists for eachother. And there's a radio feature as well!
One of the best features is the discovery page. Spotify will gather information about what you're listening to and make suggestions.
Years ago I got in on the tail end of Napster. Who whouldn't? Free music 24/7/365. That was the thinking back then, it seemed we momentarily lost sight of the importance of the work to the artists, and paying them. Then the music industry shut it down and we were back to buying CDs. There was no iTunes then, only a handful of places you could buy in .mp3 format.
There was WinMX which was around the time Napster got the ax, (it could take days to get one .mp3, and I think LimeWire is still around in and in use.
I really don't know where Spotify came from, but it seems to be a lot like Napster 2.0 and Rhapsody were, though I never used them. Simply sign up and pay a monthly service fee for access to it's whole library. I never used either. A friend turned me onto Spotify in a passing conversation. I've been in love ever since. In fact, I haven't bought any music in over a year. I'm a music fanatic so I was buying on average two albums a month, spending roughly $10-20/month at least.
The great thing about Spotify, that you could never do with iTunes, is that you can load the application on different devices. And you have access to all your playlists everywhere you go if you subscribe to the premium service.
I wish there were a way to set Spotify as my default music player on my iPhone. Then I wouldn't have to worry about the stupid glitch in my stereo that always defaults to the first song in iTunes whenever I plug it in.
Anyway...
It's worth the $9.99/month, it's at least worth checking out the FREE version to see if you like it. I think I've already converted a few friends.