Spotify Vs. Pandora

With the arrival of high speed internet mobile devices, and the ability to store information in the cloud we have seen the birth of new ways to listen to music. An aspect of music that was lost with the age of the Vynil record, music sharing with peers, is also making a strong comeback.
I refer ofcourse to music streaming applications, in this instance I would like you to consider Pandora and Spotify.

Pandora is the older of the two and was created as a music discovery platform. I myself subscribed to Pandora's service for a while and enjoyed it for a long time. It simply creates radio stations that stream music based on your favorite songs, genres, or artists. It gives you an easy to use interface and provides you with biographies on the artists, sometimes even the lyrics. It is a good app to use when your not sure what you want to listen to but have a general idea of what mood you might be in.

Spotify is the newcomer to the scene and it took a different approach when it was released. Spotify maintains a library of albums and singles from major artists. It allows the user to search for a track or album and stream it on demand. Spotify does present itself as a free service. In reality there are different tiers to their membership and this allows the user to decide how they could best use the service. For a free subscription you can access all the music you want on your computer. For a small monthly fee you can also access Spotify on your phone. For a slightly larger fee you can sync songs to your phone so that you can listen to them even when you can not connect to the internet or a network.

Initially there was a good distinction in the differences between the two and distinct advantages to both. Recently however, Spotify has added the same radio like features as Pandora, as a result of this and other competitors entering the market Pandora has lost about a fourth of its user base. The truth is that most people will use whichever platform they feel most comfortable with, usually you wont see users streaming from two different platforms simultaneously, specially if they are paying a subscription.

Now there are some gripes that arise with Spotify and for some users these are deal breakers. For one using Spotify requires the installation of its platform software on your computer in order to stream on it. This is in comparison to Pandora which allows the user to listen on their browser. Another is what happens when your subscription lapses for some reason. All of a sudden all of your music files are unplayable on your mobile device (even when they have been synced) and will only play radio channels. While this last issue is seldom seen as long as you continue to pay a subscription it can be annoying to some users.

Music has always been a social medium and Spotify does allow users to create and share playlists and artists with their friends. It even keeps tabs of your friends on Facebook and alerts you when they have joined, allowing you to share your albums and playlists with them as well. Some DJs are even building followers using this service.

The battle of the music streamers has been well under way and we still have yet to see who will reign supreme. For now though if you havent tried these services the links are below, you can decide for yourself which one is best for you.

What are some of your favorite music sites and how do stream your music most of the time?
  

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