21 May 10

Spotify launches Spotify Open

Jonathan Sepulchre, Digital Planner Buyer

This week Spotify has unveiled a new pricing scheme- “Spotify Open”. Previously the Spotify service was only available on an invitation and subscription basis. The Swedish company has now launched Spotify Open, which allows everybody to download the software and listen to music free of charge in exchange for being exposed to advertising. However, the usage of the Open service is restricted to 20 hours per month. If users want to remove this limitation, they need to subscribe to one of the two subscriptions based options available: the unlimited for £4.99 per month which allows them to listen to unlimited streaming of music with no advertisements. Or the Premium service for £9.99 per month where users can download music on to their mobile phone.

This is a clever move from Spotify to help grow their reach in the UK,  currently standing at 3 million. They have set the bar high with a target of 15 million by 2011. In the last few months users looking to access Spotify were on a waiting list as the service was strictly invitation only. This “Freemium” model, giving users a free 20 hour taster in a bid to increase paid subscriptions to the service is sharp. I think this direction is Spotify’s answer to the question of the moment for all media owners: how can they monetize their content!