What is it?

Spotify is an online music service offering users the ability to stream more than 15 million tracks on demand using Spotify’s unique technology.  Spotify provides instant access to whatever music you want, whenever and wherever you want it, through a simple, clean and quick to use platform via an ad-supported, free-to-the-user service and a paid subscription service…legally.

What’s Cool?

• Over 15 Million songs at your finger tips for unlimited listening and sharing.
• Multi-platform: Listen to music on Spotify on your computer (free) or your mobile device (paid subscription)
• Playlists: Create and share with your friends.  Access them from anywhere.
• Share your favorite music via social media (Facebook, Twitter, etc.)

Premium Spotify

The added advantages of paying for Spotify Premium just might be great enough to drop $9.99/month for the following features:

• No Ads!
• Playing songs on my iPhone and iPad
• Downloading songs to my mobile devices for when I might be in a place that I do not have an internet connection
• Exclusive content: Being able to hear new albums before they are released
• Higher quality music, up to 320kbps

Service Plans

Here is an abbreviated rundown of the different Spotify service plans.  Click on the graphic for more information about the different plans.

 Facebook + Spotify =

Facebook and Spotify announced a collaboration recently to allow over 800 Million Facebook users to share their favorite music with their friends.  Here is a short video about this collaboration:

 Conclusion

I am an advocate for Spotify.  I think that their model is exactly what the music industry needs.  Daniel Ek, Founder of Spotify was quoted in a CNN interview saying ”What Spotify is saying is, ownership (of music) is great, but access is the future,” Ek said. “The main reason people want to pay for Spotify is really portability. People are saying, ‘I want to have my music with me.’ ”  The model of “give it to them free” has gained popularity in the past few years, so much so that I think it is almost expected.  Companies that realize their revenue should not be focused on the end user, but with the content providers or ad creators, are companies that will make a lot of money while providing an outstanding customer experience.

iTunes Match is quite possibly one of the best moves that Apple has made in the music realm. It is also one of the best uses of Apple’s new iCloud service.  If you are unfamiliar with iTunes Match, here is a quick summary of what it is:

iTunes Match is a feature of iTunes in the Cloud that allows you to access your entire personal music library from any computer with iTunes 10.5.1 or later installed or any iOS 5.0.1 or later device with an active Internet connection. iTunes Match requires an annual subscribtion of $24.99 a year. Your subscription will automatically renew at the end of your subscription. Once you have subscribed to iTunes Match and matched or uploaded your eligible music, you will be able to access your music in iCloud directly from within your iTunes Music library, or the Music Player app on your iOS 5 device.

Also, if you are wondering about the specifics about iTunes Match, here ya’ go:

• iTunes Match is limited to 25,000 songs.
• iTunes Store purchases made with the same Apple ID being used for iTunes Match do not count towards the 25,000 song limit.
• Unmatched content will be uploaded as is; upload time varies depending on the amounts uploaded and local network speeds.
• Song files over 200 MB will not be uploaded to iCloud.
• Songs containing DRM (Digital Rights Management) will not be matched or uploaded to iCloud unless your computer is authorized for playback of that content.
• Songs purchased outside of the United States iTunes Store containing DRM (Digital Rights Management) will not be matched or uploaded to iCloud.
• Songs encoded in ALAC, WAV, or AIFF will be transcoded to a separate temporary AAC 256 kbps file locally, prior to uploading to iCloud. The original files will remain untouched.
• Songs encoded as AAC or MP3 with a bitrate lower than 96 kbps will not be matched or uploaded to iCloud.

To turn on iTunes Match

1. Simply download iTunes 10.5.1 or later
2. Choose Store > Turn On iTunes Match.
3. From the main screen, click “Subscribe for $24.99.”
   
4. Once you subscribe to the service, you will see the following screens:

Have you gotten iTunes Match yet?  If so, what do you think about it?  Comment below!

Recorded: October 28, 2011
It’s the all-Apple edition of “New Stuff”, where this month’s panel talks about the new iPhone 4S, the new iCloud strategy, and the life and death of Apple founder Steve Jobs.  The panel also speculates whether residing so close to the North Carolina Apple Data Center gives them any special “insight” into Mac rumors.

Show host Lee Yount (www.catawbacounty.gov) brings together a group of fellow “MESH-Heads” for this month’s episode, including MESH founders Mary-Margaret Baker and Alan Jackson (both from Jackson Group Interactive, www.jginteractive.com) and “Free Range Chicken Thinking” experts Houston Harris and Ryan Carroll (with Pixelspace,www.pixelspace.com).

Listen to the Show

Today will be another page in the history books for Apple Inc..  At 10:am PST Apple will hold an event where Tim Cook will announce the next version of the Apple iPhone 5 (or 4S depending on the rumors).  In honor of this event, I found this interactive infographic created by Thinglink that shows you where the history of the iPhone. Rollover the infographic below to see more information about each section. Enjoy!

You have probably watched a YouTube video, sent, or at least heard of a tweet on Twitter, know someone that is using Facebook, and maybe even wondered why anyone would “check-in” when they are out and about.  Mashable recently posted an infographic with some great stats about marketing in social media.  These statistics are up-to-date, so this should be very helpful especially if your company is thinking about using social media to reach current and potential customers.  Please feel free to comment below about social media, marketing, or anything else for that matter!

Since July 2006 Twitter has challenged us to get to the point with 140 characters or less.  In the past 5 years Twitter has gone from 0 to 200 million users sending 350 billion tweets a day!

Twitter has been used by, and for almost every demographic in the world including movie stars connecting to their fans, protesters during Iranian elections, and asking for disaster relief during and after a disaster, in a medium that spans the world in mere seconds.

The general responses that I get when talking to people about Twitter is one of two: 1.) “Tweet me later” 2.)” I just don’t understand Twitter?”.  If you answer like #2, you might want to check out this “Twitter in Plain English” video to help you join the 200 million other people that are already connecting.

Below is an infographic from visual.ly about the history of Twitter in the past 5 years.  Oh and if you would like to follow me on Twitter, you can find me here: @leeyount Enjoy!

On June 20, 2011 Foursquare announced that they have reached 10,000,000 members in it’s community since their launch in March 2009.  We all share their lives in different ways whether you are one of the 1,061 users that announced a birth at a hospital check-in, or you are one of the 4.7 million users that have checked in on a Main St. in the U.S, this is a tool that people are using and a tool that businesses are leveraging.

Check out this Infographic from Foursquare to see some other neat stats from over the past couple of years:

Check out the official Foursquare Blog post here: https://foursquare.com/10million

96% of small to medium sized business are using some kind of mobile technology in their day to day operations, are you one of them?  Whether you are using an app like Square to make a sale or you are telling people about your new product/service on Facebook, businesses are using this technology to get a competitive edge on their competitors.

Below is an Infographic from Intuit and design shop Column Five that will show you how mobile devices are changing the way business do business, enjoy!

I live in in the foothills of North Carolina, Newton to be specific.  Recently, like much of the Southeastern United States have been struck with destructive severe weather in the form of high winds, hail, and tornadoes.  While many of you know that I monitor the weather and post watches/warnings as they come into Catawba County, I thought I would share some of my resources so that you can be better prepared as well, here they are:

Facebook - I post updates, links, etc. on my personal facebook profile: http://www.facebook.com/leeyount

Twitter – I created a Twitter list named NCemergency (http://twitter.com/list/LeeYount/ncemergency) with several people, organizations, news, and government officials that tweet about emergency related items.

Hootsuite / Tweetdeck – I use both of these tools (depending on where I am and what device I am using) to follow different columns of Twitter and Facebook.  These are also great tools to use to search for hashtags.

Twitter Hashtags - Here are several (but not all) hashtags that I search when there is a severe weather event in North Carolina
(if you do not want to download or use Hootsuite or Tweetdeck, you can always do searches directly on Twitter at http://search.twitter.com/ although it is not the most effective way to use Twitter search)

• #ncwx – north carolina weather
• #nctornado – north carolina tornado
• #tornado – tornado
• #damage – damage
• #tornadowarning – tornado warnings
• #smem – social media emergency management

You can also combine search terms in Twitter like this:

• #NCTornado OR #tornado OR #damage OR #tornadowarning OR #shelter OR #wind OR tornado
• twitpic OR yfrog OR plixi OR twitgoo OR picktor OR mobypicture OR twitxr OR posterous #tornado

If you find yourself in need of assistance here are a couple of good resources:

• 911 – Always call 911 if you have an emergency.
• Find a Red Cross Shelter – If you need to leave your home because of an evacuation or if your home is damaged, find Red Cross shelter openings here.
• Red Cross Safe and Well – After a distster, let your family and loved ones know that you are OK by registering on this site.  You can also search for family or loved ones here.

How to be prepared / receive National Weather Service emergency alerts:

• TV/Local Radio – As long as you have power, stay tuned to your local news outlets / radio stations for National Weather Service emergency information.
• Weather Radio – Weather radios are a great tool to have to wake you up in the middle of the night when there is the threat of severe weather of an emergency situation in your area.
• SMS/Text Message – The Weather Channel provides text message emergency alerts for your area.  You can also choose what you want to be alerted of.
• There’s an app for that – Weather Alert USA is the name of the iPhone/iPad/iPod touch app that will alert you of emergency alerts in your area.  Here is the iTunes link: http://ow.ly/4IAcs web link:http://ow.ly/4IAct
• Red Cross Emergency Preparedness Store – Find and purchase several products including, but not limited to Weather radios, first aid kits, preparedness guides, and more.
• National Weather Service Severe Awareness Page – This is a great page with a lot of useful information, especially the Preparedness Guide.

The bottom line is stay safe and use common sense.  When severe weather is eminent, take the proper precautions to protect yourself and your family / loved ones.  Stay safe out there!

5 years ago today Jack Dorsey (@jack), Creator, Co-founder and Chairman of Twitter tweeted for the first time with the message “just setting up my twttr”.  Since then, the multi-billion dollar company has rapidly grown to nearly 200 million users.

Twitter has been used to connect people, businesses, and causes.  Recently, Twitter has been used as a vital communication channel during an emergency/disaster.  Whether it’s and earthquake in Japan, or a tornado ripping through Catawba County, NC, people are looking to Twitter to get important information quickly.

The number of apps that have been developed by Twitter and by 3rd party developers has been astounding!  Per Twitter Co-founder, Biz Stone, there have been over 70,000 registered applications that integrate with Twitter, many of those being on a mobile platform.

So what’s next for Twitter?  I think that people will find new ways to apply this technology to their everyday lives that will transform how we communicate.

What do you think the next 5 years will hold for Twitter?  Comment below!