Music streaming service Spotify announced this week that it now has an impressive one million paid subscribers in the United States alone, a significant milestone for the company. A number of improvements to the service were also announced, including the new Discover tab and expanded social features.
Spotify announced last week that it now has more than 5 million paid subscribers across the globe, and claims to have paid out more than US$500 million to musicians in royalties. Looking to the future, the company is set to introduce a number of new features across both its desktop and mobile platforms in an effort to create a more personal experience for the user.
The first of these is the Follow tab, a feature that lets users follow friends, celebrities and musicians, seeing what they're listening to and getting recommendations from them. The company has already attracted some impressive names to the feature, with users able to follow influential figures such as Barack Obama, Paul McCartney and Katy Perry at launch. It's an interesting addition and a significant evolution of the Facebook integration that the company brought in last year.
The second major upgrade comes in the form of the Discover tab, a service that combines social tools with content from reputable sources such as Pitchfork. In addition to new releases and playlists from artists that the user follows, the new feature will make intelligent recommendations based on the music you listen to, reviews and upcoming concerts.
Lastly, the update, which is expected early next year, will bring with it a new Collection tab, which presents a much neater way of organizing your music. Instead of creating a new playlist for an album, you'll just click the 'add' button and it will appear in your Collection. Ok, it's essentially just a music library, and though it's hardly ground-breaking, it is a very welcome addition to the software.
There's also been some other minor improvements and upgrades such as mobile push notifications for releases from your favorite artists, better social feeds and a new Audio Preview feature which lets you hear a clip of a track without losing your place in whatever you're already listening to. The company's web-app, which it began testing last month, is also set for an early 2013 release.
Source: Spotify