Spotify is about to release their own version of Gift cards that will be in store in time for Christmas.

Gift cards will come in £10, £30 and £50 options. You can redeem the cards for Spotify subscriptions or download tracks.

To redeem a card just head over to our ‘Redeem your code‘ page and enter the PIN number on the back of the card. Starting today Morrisons will be the first store to start selling our gift cards. Spotify will be dding many more retail shops in the near future, stay tuned.

• Spotify Gapless Playback – October 17, 2011
• Share and Listen to Music on Facebook with Spotify – September 23, 2011
• Spotify Conversion Rate is at 12.5 Percent in the US: Major Labels Rejoice – August 9, 2011
• 2 Tools to Turn YouTube into a Genre-Based Radio Station – October 3, 2011
• Pandora Launches All New Website – September 21, 2011

Spotify Gift Cards Available to Buy in Retail Stores in UK in time for Christmas originally appeared on: Crenk
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• Spotify Gift Cards Available to Buy in Retail Stores in UK in time for Christmas – November 1, 2011
• Share and Listen to Music on Facebook with Spotify – September 23, 2011
• Spotify Conversion Rate is at 12.5 Percent in the US: Major Labels Rejoice – August 9, 2011
• 2 Tools to Turn YouTube into a Genre-Based Radio Station – October 3, 2011
• Pandora Launches All New Website – September 21, 2011

Spotify Gapless Playback originally appeared on: Crenk
Join our Community: Twitter, Facebook

YouTube has a huge database of music clips of all imaginable genres and types. It’s a great source of inspiration – we just need more tools to enjoy it.

The following two tools will add a lot of fun to your YouTube music-listening experience: they will let you endlessly listen to your favorite music genres.

Zebralizer

Zebralizer is YouTube-powered online tool that will play your music as long as you want it to. It won’t work on Internet Explorer, nor will it work on FireFox if you are on Mac. Google Chrome has been the best option to use the tool so far.

The site has a fun search option that will suggest to you results while you are typing:

Once the results are loaded, music will start playing immediately.

While listening, you can browse through the search results to add any clip to the play list. There’s also a “radio” button that will instantly create a play list from the similar music clips to the one currently running.

You can even load the lyrics next to the current song and start singing:

The built-in player controls let you play the music louder, jump to the next track, watch the video in the full-screen mode and shuffle your current play list.

Jukesy

Jukesy is a fun, yet not widely-known web-based app that allows you to enjoy an endless sit-back-and-listen YouTube experience.

To select the genre, you can browse through the vast selection of popular tags (anything from “art rock” to “hip hop” can be found there) or use the search option.

Once the genre is chosen, you can enjoy an endless video and music stream: Just keep the tab open and keep working or browsing the web – the music of your preferred genre will play until you stop it.

The built-in player controls let you easily adjust the volume, toggle the full-screen view or repeat your favorite song.

That’s a great music discovery tool: With its vast search capabilities, you are most likely to come across a new song or band that will become your favorite one. Besides, the tool offers plenty of information about genres and bands (powered by Last.fm).

You can continue searching for music, while the current clip keeps playing. You can add a new clip to the play list or queue video clips right from the search results (without interrupting your current music stream).

If you create an account, you can save your play lists as well.

Are there any other tools for the similar lean-back music experience? Please share them in the comments!

Jennifer Moline writes for the PsPrint Blog. PsPrint is an online commercial printing company.

• Best Music Streaming Services – January 27, 2011
• TubeRadio Redefines Online Music Listening – November 20, 2009
• Spotify Gift Cards Available to Buy in Retail Stores in UK in time for Christmas – November 1, 2011
• Spotify Gapless Playback – October 17, 2011
• Share and Listen to Music on Facebook with Spotify – September 23, 2011

2 Tools to Turn YouTube into a Genre-Based Radio Station originally appeared on: Crenk
Join our Community: Twitter, Facebook

p.s. Facebook Music was a joke and never existed. Most of the top tech blogs really need to check their sources.

• Spotify Gift Cards Available to Buy in Retail Stores in UK in time for Christmas – November 1, 2011
• Spotify Gapless Playback – October 17, 2011
• Spotify Conversion Rate is at 12.5 Percent in the US: Major Labels Rejoice – August 9, 2011
• 2 Tools to Turn YouTube into a Genre-Based Radio Station – October 3, 2011
• Pandora Launches All New Website – September 21, 2011

Share and Listen to Music on Facebook with Spotify originally appeared on: Crenk
Join our Community: Twitter, Facebook

Some of our new features include:

Simplified Station Creation – Enhanced auto-complete choices and personalized suggestions make creating new stations and discovering new music or comedy more intuitive and personal.

Discovery of Music with Friends – Enhanced listener profiles and a new music feed offer a centralized place to find, like and comment on what friends and like-minded listeners are discovering and enjoying on Pandora. The music feed will roll out slowly over the course of the coming days. In addition to the prominent new “share” button, stations now have their own URLs, making it super easy for listeners to share favorite stations via Twitter, Facebook, or email.

Improved Control – Prominent and ubiquitous access to familiar player control buttons including Play, Pause, Thumbs-Up and Thumbs-Down icons helps listeners to easily personalize their music and comedy stations. A new shuffle feature also allows listeners to shuffle any collection of stations to add variety to their listening experience.

Enhanced Artist Information – An option to learn more about the music, find lyrics, read artists’ biographies and expand the album art size.

Unlimited listening – We’ve removed the 40 hours listening cap – you can now listen as much as you want for free.

via – Pandora

• Spotify Gift Cards Available to Buy in Retail Stores in UK in time for Christmas – November 1, 2011
• Spotify Gapless Playback – October 17, 2011
• 2 Tools to Turn YouTube into a Genre-Based Radio Station – October 3, 2011
• Share and Listen to Music on Facebook with Spotify – September 23, 2011
• Spotify Conversion Rate is at 12.5 Percent in the US: Major Labels Rejoice – August 9, 2011

Pandora Launches All New Website originally appeared on: Crenk
Join our Community: Twitter, Facebook

With Kazaa you can use your iPhone, iPad or iPod Touch to listen to unlimited, on-demand music everywhere. Play any of our millions of songs as much as you like, make your own playlists, listen to artist stations and discover new music that you love. Sync songs, albums and playlists to your iPhone, iPad, or iPod Touch and listen even when you’re offline. Search and find any song, album or artist, and start listening immediately.

• Access millions and millions of songs
• All the music you love – and new music to be discovered – at your fingertips
• Sync and play music even when you are offline
• Build and save playlists
• New music added every week

The app is US only at the moment and free to download. You will need to pay a subscription charge of  $9.99 a month.

[App Store link]

• Create Your Own Native Looking iPhone and iPad App Using HTML, CSS and Javascript – April 8, 2011
• Android Market Now Has Over 250,000 Apps: Grown by 100,000 in Last 30 Days.. Really! – March 21, 2011
• Global Mobile Application Store Rankings: Apple App Store Killing the Competition – February 21, 2011
• GetJoyPad: Convert Your iPhone in a JoyPad – May 28, 2010
• Unveiling Windows Live Messenger for iPhone – April 28, 2010

Kazaa Music Streaming App Now Available in App Store originally appeared on: Crenk
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This is amazing news for the music industry, because MOG, Rdio and other music streaming services have been having trouble gaining traction.

Spotify is all about conversion rates! The major labels want to see highest possible conversions to the premium service from the free option. In Europe Spotify has a conversion rate of 15% and so far in the US they are seeing 12.5%. Very promising signs for Spotify.

• Spotify Gift Cards Available to Buy in Retail Stores in UK in time for Christmas – November 1, 2011
• Spotify Gapless Playback – October 17, 2011
• Share and Listen to Music on Facebook with Spotify – September 23, 2011
• 2 Tools to Turn YouTube into a Genre-Based Radio Station – October 3, 2011
• Pandora Launches All New Website – September 21, 2011

Spotify Conversion Rate is at 12.5 Percent in the US: Major Labels Rejoice originally appeared on: Crenk
Join our Community: Twitter, Facebook

Slacker becomes the first music service to deliver three complementary tiers: free ad supported interactive streams, subscription based ad-free radio with extra features, and on-demand music with Slacker Premium Radio.

For a limited time you can get a free subscription to Slackers Premium Radio service by just heading here to their Facebook.

• Spotify Gift Cards Available to Buy in Retail Stores in UK in time for Christmas – November 1, 2011
• Spotify Gapless Playback – October 17, 2011
• 2 Tools to Turn YouTube into a Genre-Based Radio Station – October 3, 2011
• Share and Listen to Music on Facebook with Spotify – September 23, 2011
• Pandora Launches All New Website – September 21, 2011

Slacker Premium Radio: On-Demand Music Streaming for Free in USA originally appeared on: Crenk
Join our Community: Twitter, Facebook

Long term: “We’ll launch premium accounts in the coming months, giving you access to new ways for you to live off of the music you create & control.”

There is a huge amount of competition in this space and it already seems as though Official.fm is going to have a lot of problems with copyrighted content. Already on the site I can download a huge amount of illegal content, so only going to be a matter of time before the labels sue them.

Disclosure: Im founder of RouteNote a digital music distributor based in the UK.

• Spotify Gift Cards Available to Buy in Retail Stores in UK in time for Christmas – November 1, 2011
• Spotify Gapless Playback – October 17, 2011
• 2 Tools to Turn YouTube into a Genre-Based Radio Station – October 3, 2011
• Share and Listen to Music on Facebook with Spotify – September 23, 2011
• Pandora Launches All New Website – September 21, 2011

Official.fm Gains $8 Million for Music DIY Social Network originally appeared on: Crenk
Join our Community: Twitter, Facebook

Spotify will be limiting their free service to 10 hours of listening per month, down from 20 hours. What’s more, they’ll only be able to play individual tracks five times ever, before they are made greyed out and unplayable.

Upgrading to the Spotify Premium service will obviously remove both of these limitations and provide better quality streaming.

“We’ve got to balance a number of priorities,” says chief content officer Ken Parks. “Chief amongst those priorities is to keep the free service, which is what makes Spotify unique, and what you’re seeing here is a balance of these priorities. We’ve shown that the model is doing extremely well, but as things stand we need to tweak the service to ensure everyone has access to legal music in the long term.”

It seems that these changes are down to rightsholder demands, but I know first hand that this is because of the major labels not liking the free service! Independent record labels and aggregators seem to be onboard with Spotify’s free service, as long as it brings people off illegal services and allows rightholders to generate at least a little royalties.

• Spotify Gift Cards Available to Buy in Retail Stores in UK in time for Christmas – November 1, 2011
• Spotify Gapless Playback – October 17, 2011
• Share and Listen to Music on Facebook with Spotify – September 23, 2011
• Spotify Conversion Rate is at 12.5 Percent in the US: Major Labels Rejoice – August 9, 2011
• How To Use Spotify if your based in USA or Other Countries – August 16, 2009

Spotify Decreasing Free Music Streaming Service to Only 10 Hours of Listening Time originally appeared on: Crenk
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Regardless, all of this puts Grooveshark at a serious advantage over rivals like Spotify and Rdio.  For example, Spotify requires playlist recipients to access shared playlists within the Spotify application – that is, where available.  Rdio even has an incredible in-app Twitter-sharing feature, though songs can only be accessed by fellow subscribers.

• Spotify Gift Cards Available to Buy in Retail Stores in UK in time for Christmas – November 1, 2011
• Spotify Gapless Playback – October 17, 2011
• 2 Tools to Turn YouTube into a Genre-Based Radio Station – October 3, 2011
• Share and Listen to Music on Facebook with Spotify – September 23, 2011
• Pandora Launches All New Website – September 21, 2011

Grooveshark Widgets: Add Full Track Music Streaming To Your Website originally appeared on: Crenk
Join our Community: Twitter, Facebook

The Sonos S5 system works as a speaker for all music in the cloud. It can play music from your iTunes, as well as services like Pandora, Rhapsody, Napster, SIRIUS, Last.fm and a ton of radio stations and podcasts. One can use a smartphone or iPad to control the whole shebang — for around $400 per room.

Now, Rdio, a super social music subscription service that lets you follow friends and listen to music on demand, is part of the Sonos stable (at least for users in the U.S. and Canada). Rdio on Sonos costs $9.99 per month.

• Spotify Conversion Rate is at 12.5 Percent in the US: Major Labels Rejoice – August 9, 2011
• Sonos Launching Android Specific Controller – February 13, 2011
• Rdio Television Ad From Walmart and Samsung – November 24, 2011
• Spotify Gift Cards Available to Buy in Retail Stores in UK in time for Christmas – November 1, 2011
• Spotify Gapless Playback – October 17, 2011

Rdio Music Streaming Now Available on Sonos originally appeared on: Crenk
Join our Community: Twitter, Facebook

Spotify

Availability: Finland, France, the Netherlands, Spain, Sweden, UK
Pricing: Varies by country, but UK customers are offered:
• “Open,” 20 hours of lower-bitrate streaming with advertisements: Free
• “Free,” unlimited streaming at lower bitrates with advertisements: Free (with invitation)
• “Unlimited,” with no restriction on streaming and no advertisements: £4.99 per month (just under $8 U.S.)
• “Premium,” with no ads or restrictions, higher bitrate streaming, offline storage of playlist tracks, and mobile apps and streaming: £9.99 per month (just under $16 U.S.)
Platforms: Web, Windows, Mac, Linux, iOS, Android, Symbian; BlackBerry under development; unofficial client available on Windows Mobile.
Size of music library: Approximately 8 million tracks from major label and indie artists.
Stream rate: 160 kbps for Free and Unlimited plans, 320 kbps for Premium.
Offline storage: Premium subscribers only, up to 3,333 tracks.
Other features: Desktop apps do a fine job managing all your offline music.
Free trial of subscription: No.

Rdio

Availability: U.S. and Canada.
Pricing:
• Rdio Unlimited, with desktop players, mobile apps, and music downloads: $9.99 (U.S.) per month
• Rdio Web, unlimited streaming through web site: $4.99 per month.
Platforms: Browser only through “Web”; browser, Adobe AIR desktop apps for Windows and Mac, and iPhone, Android, and BlackBerry apps with “Unlimited” plan.
Size of music library: About seven million tracks.
Stream rate: Undisclosed, but representatives claimed it ran “higher than the 64kbps streaming bit rate offered by Rhapsody.”
Offline storage: Playlists can be synced offline with Unlimited, no limits described.
Other features: “Syncing” to iTunes and Windows Media Player, so that your existing offline music and playlists is reflected in your online Rdio dashboard, and you can access an online copy of your playlists anywhere.
Free trial of subscription: Three days of Rdio Web, no credit card needed.

Rhapsody

Availability: U.S. only.
Pricing:
• “Rhapsody Premier” with unlimited streaming and (subscription-restricted) downloads to one phone or MP3 player: $9.99 per month.
• “Rhapsody Premier Plus” ups the total of portable synced devices to three: $14.99 per month.
Platforms: Windows and Mac, with apps for iOS, Android, select Verizon Wireless phones, and compatible MP3 players. BlackBerry app in development.
Size of music library: Over 10 million songs
Stream rate: 128 kbps (MP3) for paid accounts, 64 kbps for free previews.
Offline storage: Unlimited downloads of Rhapsody tracks, expire upon subscription ending.
Other features:
Free trial of subscription: 25 streams through the web site per month, and a 14-day trial of Premier, requires credit card and deactivation.

MOG

Availability: Global
Pricing:
• “Basic” provides web streaming and customized “radio” stations: $4.99 per month.
• “Primo” covers the Basic plan, plus mobile access and offline storage: $9.99 per month.
Platforms: Web-only for Basic. Primo adds iOS and Android devices.
Size of music library: 7.4 million
Stream rate: 256 kbps through the web, 64 kbps mobile.
Offline storage: On mobile, with either 64 kbps AAC or 320 kbps MP3 files.
Other features:
Free trial of subscription: Three days of Primo service, no credit card needed.

Napster

Availability: U.S., UK, Canada, Germany and Japan
Pricing:
• One-month, three-month, and one-year streaming plans; three-month and one-year plans also provide 15 song download credits every three months: $5-$7 per month
• “Napster to Go,” with unlimited song transfer for up to three mobile devices: $14.95 per month
Platforms: Windows and compatible MP3 players.
Size of music library: “Over 10 million.”
Stream rate: 128-192 kbps, depending on track.
Offline storage: Via download credits.
Other features: Extremely annoying woman appears and starts talking to you in lower-right corner of web site when not signed in. She has human-like features.
Free trial of subscription: Seven days of streaming, no download credits, credit card required.

Grooveshark

Availability: Global
Pricing:
• Streaming through Grooveshark’s web site, with ads: Free
• Grooveshark VIP, with desktop and mobile apps, no ads, customization options: $3 per month or $30 per year.
Platforms: Desktop streaming through web for free; VIP members get Adobe AIR app for Windows, Mac, and Linux, and mobile apps for Android, Nokia, Palm, BlackBerry, and jailbroken iPhones.
Size of music library: Seven million (unverified)
Stream rate: 192kbps
Offline storage: Yes (through mobile apps)
Other features:
Free trial of subscription: Have appeared in past.

Radio-Style Streaming

Pandora

Availability: U.S. only
Pricing:
• 40 hours a month of streaming music, limited (five per hour) skips: Free.
• “Pandora One,” with unlimited streaming and skips, no ads, higher quality, and desktop app: $3 per month.
Platforms: Web, Windows & Mac (AIR app), mobile apps for iOS, Android, BlackBerry, webOS, Windows Mobile.
Size of music library: 700,000 tracks.
Stream rate: 64 kbps (AAC+) for free users, 192 kbps for Pandora One
Offline storage: None.
Other features:
Free trial of subscription: None.

Last.fm

Availability: U.S., UK, Germany for continuous free streaming, 30-song trial in all other countries
Pricing:
• Basic sign-up, with unlimited streaming (U.S./UK/Germany) and “scrobbling”: Free.
• Subscriber accounts, with no advertising, custom/”Loved” playlists, server priority, and international streaming: $3 per month
Platforms: Windows, Mac, Linux, and iOS, Android, BlackBerry.
Size of music library: 6.5 million songs.
Stream rate: 128 kbps (MP3)
Offline storage: None
Other capabilities: Near-universal “Scrobbling”: Keep Last.fm informed about what you’re playing and liking through most media players and smartphone apps.
Free trial of subscription: None.

Slacker Radio

Availability: U.S., Canada
Pricing:
• Unlimited streaming but limited skips: Free.
• “Slacker Radio Plus,” with unlimited skips, no ads, mobile app caching for online-to-offline continuity: $4-$5 month (monthly or annual billing).
Platforms: Web streaming through browser, and mobile apps: iOS, Android, BlackBerry, webOS, Windows Mobile.
Size of music library: More than 2.4 million songs.
Stream rate: 128 kbps (MP3) through web, sometimes 64 kbps (AAC+) mobile.
Offline storage: Mobile apps can cache streams for playing when disconnected.
Free trial of subscription: Seven days of Slacker Radio Plus, requires card and must be deactivated.

• 2 Tools to Turn YouTube into a Genre-Based Radio Station – October 3, 2011
• Spotify Gift Cards Available to Buy in Retail Stores in UK in time for Christmas – November 1, 2011
• Spotify Gapless Playback – October 17, 2011
• Share and Listen to Music on Facebook with Spotify – September 23, 2011
• Pandora Launches All New Website – September 21, 2011

Best Music Streaming Services originally appeared on: Crenk
Join our Community: Twitter, Facebook

Foobar 2000 – A digital music management program for Windows users. It works with Windows 2000, Windows Vists , Windows XP and Windows XP 64 bit edition. To use this program you will need 32 MB of RAM and a display with at least an 800 X 600 resolution. This program is compatible with MP1-4, MPC, AAC, WAV, SND, WMA, Ogg Valis, WavPack, AIFF, CDDA, FIAC/Ogs FLAC and AU. It also supports full Unicode and Replay Gain. Other great features include third party development potential and keyboard shortcut that are fully customizable.

Froddle Pod – Froddle is not as feature rich as iTunes but it provides access to the main features that iPod owners need: It can copy music and videos from and to an iPod which is definitely the main feature that any iTunes alternative should support. The software can also backup and restore all data that is stored on an iPod. Another feature is music normalization for all or selected music on the iPod.

Songbird – Built on the Firefox platform and works with iPods and other media players. In addition to many great features, Songbird has a plenty of add-ons, and because it’s open source, clever programmers will be adding more as time goes on.

YamiPod An interesting iTunes alternative, because you don’t have to install it on your computer at all. Just copy it to your iPod’s hard disk and then you can manage your songs from any computer running Mac OS X, Windows or Linux.

Winamp – Sometimes called the grandfather of Windows music players, Winamp is a full featured music manager, with integrated iPod support and will even play iTunes protected files if QuickTime is installed.

Amarok – A great iTunes alternative for Linux and Unix users. It works with a wide variety of portable music players including: iPod, Creative Zen players, iRiver iFP and T players, Nomad players, generic MTP players and generic USB players. Some of the features that this program has that you are going to love include: album covers, wikipedia integration, last.fm integration, superior visual effects, lyrics support and music tracking capabilities.

Banshee – Linux users are going to enjoy what Banshee has to offer. This free download allows you to do everything that you want to do with your digital music. You can import music, organize music, play it back, share it and rip it on a CD. This is a great program for people who love their music and who want to actively manage it.

Cog – Most people using Mac OSX feel that iTunes is the best option because it was designed for this platform. However, Cog is worth a look for Mac users, because it addresses many of the limitations that iTunes has. It can be used with the following file types: Ogg vorbis, Monkeys Audio, MP3, Wavpack, Apple Lossless, FLAC, Musepack, AAC and WAV/AIFF. Some of the features that make it a worthy alternative to iTunes include: gapless playback, auto updating, preferences, Growl support, global hot keys, seeking, feedback forms, last.fm support, and smart shuffle.

• Album Art to Complete Your Collection – February 10, 2010
• Internet Music Innovation with Songbeat360 – November 5, 2009
• iTunes Avoids Shutting Down – October 3, 2008
• Spotify Gift Cards Available to Buy in Retail Stores in UK in time for Christmas – November 1, 2011
• Spotify Gapless Playback – October 17, 2011

List of the Best Free iTunes Alternatives originally appeared on: Crenk
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A few people have been reporting that they have used the following steps to get a Spotify account when they are based in the USA.

1) go to http://www.daveproxy.co.uk/
2) enter the following URL: https://www.spotify.com/en/get-started/
3) Create your account, for UK postcode – check http://www.postcodesearch.org.uk/

Let us know if this still works in your country!

• Spotify Gift Cards Available to Buy in Retail Stores in UK in time for Christmas – November 1, 2011
• Spotify Gapless Playback – October 17, 2011
• Share and Listen to Music on Facebook with Spotify – September 23, 2011
• Spotify Conversion Rate is at 12.5 Percent in the US: Major Labels Rejoice – August 9, 2011
• Spotify Decreasing Free Music Streaming Service to Only 10 Hours of Listening Time – April 14, 2011

How To Use Spotify if your based in USA or Other Countries originally appeared on: Crenk
Join our Community: Twitter, Facebook