Last week, Spotify dramatically teased a "new direction" for the company. On Wednesday, the popular music-streaming service announced that new path: Spotify Apps. Free apps from Rolling Stone, Last.fm (an internet radio service), and others will give users new ways of interacting with their music by, say, offering reviews or fun facts about a band or suggesting playlists. Some say this announcement is "underwhelming." Is it really?
How utterly disappointing: "Spotify’s new app platform may be a smart move for the company, but it's underwhelming for... users and doesn't offer potential partners much value," says Janko Roettgers at GigaOM. Spotify's apps have a number of shortcomings: They'll only work from a desktop client, not on mobile devices; they'll only be allowed to use Spotify songs — "that means you won’t get any great mashups between music services"; and they're free, giving developers little incentive to develop them and making it likely that apps will feature annoying ads. This is a "pure power play" for dominance that's unlikely to spur creativity.
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