Streaming music service Spotify is said to have reached 1.4 million users in the US after less than a month of going live. The service, which is already popular overseas, is believed to have 175,000 paying members.
All Things D scored this tidbit of information from a source familiar with the company's operations. There's still a lot of room for growth, as evident by Spotify's European market breaking the 1 million paid subscriber mark months before the US launch.
Spotify is a DRM-based music streaming service that allows users to instantly listen to millions of songs from several major and independent record labels. The service launched in select European countries in October 2008 but only opened their doors to US users on July 14, 2011.
There are three service plans to choose from. The first is a free, ad-supported version that gives you unlimited streaming access to over 15 million songs. This version is invite-only and it is unclear how long it takes to receive an invite once requested.
For $5 a month, you can skip the invite queue and start streaming right away, ad-free. Finally, for a monthly fee of $10, you get access to the same bank of music but are granted the ability to use the Spotify client on your mobile device. Furthermore you can store tracks for offline listening should you not have Internet access at a given time.
Have any of you tried Spotify? My yearly subscription to Pandora recently expired and I'm thinking about giving Spotify a try as it seems much more flexible. We'd love to hear your thoughts on your favorite music streaming service.