Google Music Beta is exciting with a great user interface which is simple but multi-functional. The service at the same time is limited to users from the United States only. It has other quirks, like no music shop integration, no downloading and the fact that it will turn into a paid service after the beta.

There appear to be a few music service providers already available on the web that can give Google Music Beta a run for its money.

Spotify

This application is launched in the UK, France, Finland, Norway, Netherlands, Spain and Sweden, and not available in US, but it will soon make its appearance in the US. Spotify a new desktop application which streams music files from the web instantly for listening. This application also makes music available offline. It provides higher quality of bitrates than most of the streaming applications, up to 320kbps. Spotify has integrated sharing features to share music on social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter.

YouTube

To every one’s amazement YouTube also provides music video streaming services. Almost all the official music players use Youtube to access their videos from any part of the world using any portable device. These videos can be added to a personal playlist, which can be accessed while listening to the music.

Amazon Cloud Drive:

Amazon Cloud Drive is one of the strongest competitors to Google Music Beta. Amazon not only offers to stream music but allows uploading of all types of documents to its Cloud Drive. The Cloud Drive later provides a music player called the Cloud player through which all the uploaded music can be played-back on the cloud from anywhere while on the run using different portable devices. The main drawback to Amazon Cloud Drive is that it provides limited storage space of only 5GB which can be used to store any type of data. This storage space permits only 1000 music files compared to Google’s 20,000. Extra storage space can be purchased at a rate of $1 per GB if required. Amazon also provides offline streaming of the videos, music and all the uploaded files.

Pandora:

Pandora is a music streaming application which has been available on internet for the past few years. It is more like a digital radio available on the internet. Users cannot build a playlist or upload the music that they have with them. Instead it uses musical preferences and creates its own channels from which the user can select the favorite music. Two versions are available, one free and a second paid option. The free version allows only 40 hours of monthly usage while paid version for $36/year gives access to unlimited hours of high quality music at speeds of 192 kbps.

The deal is reported to offer $10 to $15 monthly subscriptions what would offer unlimited music but with pricing that would be tiered depending on how much music you access and how long you’d have access to it for.

There have been rumours about an iTunes subscription service for some time now and, to be honest, it’s only a matter of time before Apple and the record labels hammer out a deal.

Apple already have stiff competition in this space, not the least of which is from Spotify which has a huge following that’s growing every day.  Apple will want to maintain its market dominance and as and when they can launch a subscription service, they won’t want to let Spotify maintain the top spot for more than a few weeks.

The reports, which come from Reuters, New York Post and CNET could well be true, but for now we’ll reserve judgement.  You can be certain though that if a deal is made we’ll be sure to let you know here at gHacks.

Users from unsupported countries can enter their email address to be informed when Spotify opens registration for their countries as well. There is however a way to register an account right away even if you are living in a country that is currently blocked from registration.

All that needs to be done to bypass the country check during registration is to use a web proxy from the United Kingdom. Why United Kingdom? Because users from this country can register without invitation. Spotify did a good job of blocking many UK web proxy servers and it might take some time before you locate one that is actually working for you. Someone let me know that this one is working quite well currently. You then need to paste the following url into the web proxy form:

https://www.spotify.com/en/products/overview/

The registration asks for the usual information including email address, username and password. Make sure you remember the username and password as these are used to log into the software program that is downloaded after the registration has finished.

Spotify does not perform country checks in the Spotify application which means that the web proxy is currently only needed to create the account. Another solution would be to ask a friend from the United Kingdom to create the account for you.

Feel free to add comments (and working proxies) in the comment section.

Update: Spotify will block access to the software after 14 days if the IP did not resolve to a country currently supported officially by the application.

Spotify is a service which allows users to stream many songs online free and legally. The service is ad-supported and currently available in Sweden, Norway, Finland, the UK, France and Spain. The adverts are only a minor annoyance; I find there is about 2 minutes of them per hour of music. A premium service is also available, where adverts can be removed for a cost.

The service requires a desktop client to play the music. Their client is currently only available on OS X and Windows. Using this software, users can search for music, compile playlists and listen to online radio. The music is streamed as an Ogg Vorbis at 160kbps, so it is very high quality! It also scrobbles the music to last.fm.

The advertising is tolerable. Generally, they last about 30-45 seconds and either advertise Spotify Premium or, currently, the Disasters Emergency Committee in the UK. Premium (ad-free) Spotify costs either 99p a day or £10 a month.

I am beginning to reconsider if I still have the need to download music. Most songs are available free on Spotify, with the exception of some of the newest releases on certain labels. My only problem with Spotify is that it isn’t portable, so I can’t use it on my iPod etc.

Spotify has a bigger collection of music than the ‘full tracks’ available on last.fm.

It is currently only invitation only, but I will give the first 4 people to ask an invite each. Just leave a comment asking for one.