So, Spotify has been made available for free to anyone in the UK! This is great news for anyone who is a fan of streaming free music online without feeling guilty about piracy etc etc. According to a Forrester report:

By 2013 digital music spending will account for the majority (57 percent) of the recorded music market, with digital licensing generating an additional € 1.2 billion

You could argue that with Spotify now in the room providing free streaming, this figure should be downgraded.

There was an issue last week where Spotify were re-cataloguing their music, which meant many users found some of their tracks went AWOL. However, since then, they’ve signed CD Baby to add songs from their catalogue, as well as introducing a further 1600 LPs.

This is a positive step that will hopefully start to show any doubters (are there any?!) that Spotify is going to expand the amount of music available by huge amounts.

Everybody loves Spotify. There are lists of why it’s great and glowing reviews everywhere.

Spotify could almost be falling prone Obamaism – that is by being so good, it almost sets itself up for a fall.

Spotify needs to make sure that by opening up the service it maintains its current high speed as this is arguably the main thing that would turn users away. If the service becomes so over-used that it becomes prone to crashes and there are dribblings of a fail whale, this would be disastrous.

That is of course the reason that it’s taken so long to come out of private beta, at least here in the UK. The craving for free music is such that it would be of little surprise if the internet melted should Spotify all of a sudden be free to everyone.

So what is the next move for our favourite new music service?

Money – Spotify needs to build a bigger revenue generation platform so that they can keep offering music for free (with ads) to users who don’t want to sign up to the premium service.

Music – They need to keep expanding the amount of artists who are involved – getting hold of an Oasis track isn’t possible yet for example.

Mobile – If the service can be made available on mobiles, iPhone users would love it i’m sure, it would reach a whole new audience.

Simplicity – The user interface is easy to use which means it is more accessible to the technologically uninclined – keep it basic, keep it clean!

Customisation – The grey is a bit flat, it would be pleasant to implement a Tweetdeck style colour changing system to allow a bit of personalisation, but, bearing in mind the last point, not too much.

What would you like to see from Spotify as it becomes more widely available?