Sky Songs Unveiled to Battle iTunes, Spotify & Napster Comments

We7.com is also interesting, can't remember who they've partnered with to 'Buy' from though. It's quite useful sometimes if a song is missing from Spotify, but I do find their site a bit cluttered.

Also, I saw a comment somewhere (possibly a youtube video) that the Palm Pre connects to Amazon's MP3 store. Can anyone confirm that?

Things aren't looking good for Spotify now are they? They are moaning about shutting down in a year if things don't look up, yet ask for £10 p/m just to have ad-free streaming? Ok, you can download to listen offline, but the tracks still aren't yours to keep.
I like iTunes (Mac, not crappy Windows version) and like the store, but single tracks can be too expensive at 99p (not Apple's fault, but the studios) and it needs to have a subscription option at least.
Sky have actually got a decent deal here, and could do very well so long as they have the catalogue to back it up.

You're not considering all the facts though. Spotify Premium streams at a significantly higher bit rate. Now, for your average punter that won't matter but when listening on a mid range hi-fi system, believe me it can and does make a gigantic difference.

I now use both Spotify Premium (for iPhone) and Napster (for hifi conveinience) and Napsters level of compression really does lack at times compared to Spotify and really lacks compared to cds. Id imagine Sky will offer a similar bit rate to Napster but will be interested to see what they offer.

Skys deal isnt all that much better than Spotify's. Both are comparable. So you get a few free tracks to download (like Napster does), whoopideedoo! The whole point in services like these (to me at least) is that you dont ever have to clutter your harddrive up significantly unless you choose to and download.

As the article suggest though, some stiff competition in the subs based market can only be a good thing. Especially when Apple finally wade into things.

Sounds good to me, with one caveat... what's the bitrate of the downloaded files? I would expect the streams to be around 128 or 192 kbps, but if the downloads aren't at least 256kbps then I'd go elsewhere...

Take that iTunes! Now let's route for the little guy.

Is there no aspect of life in Britain that Sky won't try to invade? This could be the best service in the world and I wouldn't go near it with a barge pole. Sky are far too powerful and Murdoch's influence over the average person is scary. Plus their customer service is appalling and they fleece me on a monthly basis. (Like millions of others, I only subscribe to them because they have the rights to Premier League Football and there is no other viable alternative...)

McPloop, i too share your irrational hatred of all things Murdoch. (Probably not that irrational to be honest).

Yeah, I guess Steve Jobs is easier to look at than Murdoch...

I prefer to purchase tracks individually rather than subscription based, interesting to see what prices if at all Sky have for those compared to say Amazon/Play/7Digital...