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HAND-SELECTED CRITERIA
For every category, such as streaming music, the TechPolish team thought long and hard about what mattered to us and our friends in choosing a service. Ultimately these were criteria that could not be determined by a machine, but also would not vary much even if you asked 100 professional review experts.
COMPREHENSIVE DATA
So for every category the team picked 5 things that mattered, like how good the song selection was and the quality of sound that each service offered for streaming music. Then we scoured the web for what the company published, what consumers were saying, and what we had experienced personally.
SIMPLE RANKINGS BASED ON PRECISE NUMBERS
For every criteria, we then scored each service from 1-100, which is converted to the 1-5 star ranking in each criteria. User rank services as well. We balance what everyone says and make recommendations accordingly.
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PERSONALIZED RECOMMENDATION
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THE STARS
4+ STAR RATING [GOOD]
SUB-4 STAR RATING [BAD]
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DEFINITIONS
- OVERALL RATNG: The general sense people have for this app
- CRITERIA AVERAGE: Merely the average of the rankings for the 5 criteria
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Trey's Reviews
in Streaming Music Products100/100   |   | | | |
I must admit that I had my eye on Spotify long before it arrived in the US. Unreliable quality and legality led me away from file sharing programs and torrents. Before Spotify, I used the clunky and non-intuitive web-based service, Rhapsody, to fulfill my musical needs. As soon as Spotify became available I jumped aboard and never looked back. I cannot review the free version because I have only used the premium subscription service for $10/month, and I love it. The desktop app is quick and easy to use. Music starts instantly and there is virtually no audible recognition of buffering. Mostly every song that I could ever want is available on Spotify. However, you will come across some songs that are not available. I would say 95% of the music I have looked for is available. (No Beatles, but look how long it took them to get to iTunes.) I believe the selection will keep increasing as adoption increases. The iPhone application is good but not great. It plays music fine, but I do experience some skips when navigating through other applications while simultaneously listening to music. I find myself having to close out some apps to avoid this problem. Specifically, Evernote Spotify do not mix well. I write down my workout in the gym and listen to music at the same time and I constantly receive slowed performances from both apps when working simultaneously.One of the biggest drawbacks I hear about Spotify is its lack of ability to help a user discover music. While it may never beat the magical Pandora or other services like Turntable.fm, we must realize that Spotify was not built for music discovery. However, I have discovered many new artists and tracks using what I think is Spotify's most powerful feature, Facebook integration. The social aspect of Spotify is innovative and easy. You have the option of creating playlists and "publishing" them for the world to see. This gives your Facebook friends the opportunity to subscribe to the playlists that you created. If the owner of a published playlist adds or removes a song, it is reflected on the subscribers end. This is a great way for friends to dynamically share music and keep playlists from becoming dated. You can also use websites like sharemyplaylists.com to discover and rate popular user-created playlists. One last fun feature of Spotify is the ability to send and receive songs or albums. You simply drag and drop a track or album to a friend's name and a box will appear asking for an optional message to attach, type the message or skip then click send. The sent track(s) will appear in your friend's inbox. Spotify brings music to the age of social networking in the best way. I highly recommend Spotify for all music buffs and causal listeners alike. If you are looking for a fun, legal, and powerful way to find, listen and share music, Spotify is the way to go.
(December 2011)