1. Let me reiterate, I receive NO compensation from Spotify, not a single cent. I tout Spotify because it’s the revolution we’ve been waiting for. A legal service that allows everybody to hear everything at a low price. In the case of Spotify, free with ads or a minimal fee to exclude them. Furthermore, it’s a piracy killer.

2. I’m printing the below e-mail for two reasons:

3. I’m anti-browser because Flash slows everything down. I run multiple pages and multiple tabs until everything slows to a crawl and then I’m forced to quit and relaunch. The new Safari in Lion is supposed to solve this problem, then again, Lion is more like iOS, it’s all about apps. Operating in its own bubble as an app, Spotify is not affected by any other program, the music does not stop unless the connection goes down, presently a rarity, thank god. I’ve tried MOG’s not yet publicly-launched standalone app. I find it confusing. Then again, it’s not a final version.

4. There’s only one winner online. Everything is the same price because of easy comparison and all stores are right next door. One streaming service will be victorious. Right now Spotify has a huge head start. Its competitors could have launched with a free version, but they were afraid to risk…getting the licenses and raising and spending the money. No matter which service you believe has the best usability, you must laud Spotify for its vision and risk-taking, for which it’s now being rewarded in spades.
___________________________________________
___________________________________________

I went to MOG. They want your credit card info before you even get to see ANYTHING? F-that. Give me a free trial, then if I love it, I’ll plunk down cash and subscribe. Like I did with SPOTIFY! I dig it. I paid for it.
—
Cheers,   

EveAnna Manley, President
Manley Laboratories, Inc.

___________________________________________

Hi Bob,

Enjoy your comment on Spotify and took you up on the invitation.

With regard to Mog I’m afraid Spotify will run circles around them for one reason. Mr. Hyman’s company uses the age old ploy of assuring you a 2 week trial for X amount as long as you place your credit card down as collateral.

P.S. Don’t forget to cancel if you don’t like the service or you’ll get charged. The alternative is to sign on through your Facebook account allowing Mog access to all your information and your friends information, likes and dislikes, a real bonanza and surely better than a credit card.  After all once they have that information how do you get it back, you can cancel a credit card but if you cancel your Facebook page you’re over and out for good!

Spotify on the other hand makes signing up a breeze, no credit card, no Facebook, no nothing!  Just try our product for this period of time and if you like it join the club.  Who cares if you have to do a little more work Mr. Hyman, at least I know where my information and don’t feel like I’m getting played by some new company that could go put of business very quickly in the day and age. But hey good luck with Mog, I’d seriously consider changing this before it’s too late!

My two cents!

Cheers.

John Hoving
Vice President Media
Olmos Productions, Inc.

___________________________________________

David –

Griping about small development issues in the interface sounds desperate and the freemium offering seems reactionary to Spotify and not out of the true interest of your users. "Soon" got you beat to the punch. By the time you have the capability, all of my friends will have signed up for Spotify because all they needed was an email address, and the users is the key to the service (5 people personally converted into subscribers already!). Also, I truly LOL’d at the "your friends have to be on Facebook" bit. Classic!

Thomas McCabe

___________________________________________

MOG forces you to buy it before you get a feel for whether you like it or not.

7 day demo. Pssshaw.

Be well…
Reid Shippen
___________________________________________

Tell Mr. Hyman that asking us to give up our credit card information before we ever get to try MOG is a huge mistake.  I won’t do it.  I’m betting a whole lot of other folks won’t either.

Rob Meurer

___________________________________________

Mr. Hyman does make a compelling case.

Also while folks are waiting for their "invitation" for Spotify free, there is no waiting to try Mog free for two weeks. People don’t want to wait, they want it now.

I personally found it easier to start listening to music on Mog vs Spotify.

I can’ even find the latest Gillian Welch or Alison Krauss releases on Spotify, but have been listening on Mog for a couple of weeks now. These records are # 2 & 3 respectively on the Americana charts this week.

While I may keep both for now, I will ultimately let one of them go.

John Adair

___________________________________________

Bob, Love your writing, but you’re striking out on Spotify. I’ve been a MOG subscriber for about a year. There are some things about the interface that bug me, but all in all it works. However, I’ve been reading all your praise for Spotify and when it launched I didn’t hesitate to give them my credit card and sign up for premium service. After I downloaded the app on my iPad the first thing that happened is that it crashed. Not a good first time experience, but hey it happens. I fired it back up and began to poke around.

I’ve been working on a transcription of the tune "Misterioso" and I needed to hear the original by Monk. I went to search page to discover that I couldn’t enter both the track and the artist, I had to enter one or the other. I searched by track name and ended up having to wade through page after page of different versions before finding out what I was looking for. With MOG I would have been done and on about my business.

Later I decided to check out Gillian Welch’s new CD only to find that there are no Gillian Welch tracks from any of her albums available on Spotify. Strike two. The playlist and starred features are pure clusterfucks. Maybe it’s cool because its got P2P but something I learned a long time ago working for the phone company is that nobody gives a rip about the technology. Strike three. Unless it lets me do something easier it’s a fail. That’s what Spotify is, fail. Its technology from the past coupled with hype. I’ll be canceling my subscription ASAP.

Rick Hulett

___________________________________________

I still like Mog better, though I keep messing with Spotify to see what the fuss is about. David is right. I’d rather Spotify were more like Mog; you don’t need a desktop app for Mog. Love the new Mog beta. And I’ve been a Mogger for about 3 years.

Heather Larson — Freelance Writer

___________________________________________

Hi Bob,

Thank you for this update and for publishing David’s letter.  I had never before heard of MOG, but I after reading his comparison of the two, decided to sign up for the 14 day free MOG trial and put it side by side with my $9.99 Spotify account.  I’m already enjoying MOG’s Lee Scratch Perry radio.  I gotta say I was happy to see an artist I respect on MOG’s frontpage.  Spotify’s frontpage suggestions had me seriously questioning my ten dollar outlay.  And David is right, so far, Spotify has felt more like work and is seriously devoid of some of my favorite new music such as Sonny & The Sunsets while MOG has three full albums!  I’ll let you know which service I keep, but within the first fifteen minutes I am already leaning toward MOG.
Best,

Ryan Jones

___________________________________________

I gotta go with David Hyman on this one.  I’ve had MOG for over a year with very few complaints.  Been using Spotify (free) for the last couple days.  The one thing I notice with Spotify is that I listen to less music before turning it off.

MOG has the radio slider, which is very cool for finding other stuff. Plus their charts and suggestions on the home page turn me on to things I hadn’t thought to listen to.

Even when I know what I want, Spotify is a little tougher.  I wanted to hear the new Dolly Parton album today, but didn’t know the name of it.  Putting her name into Spotify just gives a list of albums and I had to hunt through the pile to find the latest one by year. Just did that search on MOG and it’s much quicker to get to her album list.  On the old MOG it would have come up right away.  On the new beta (which I’m still getting used to) the release years aren’t there.  But it was still much quicker to find it by the album cover.

For now, I’m sticking with paid MOG and free Spotify to fill any content holes.

Phil Johnson

___________________________________________

Just signed up for MOG – it has Arcade Fire and Spotify doesn’t….this will be an interesting struggle…

mapolitzer

___________________________________________

"MOG has full catalog in 320kbps.  MOG lets you stream 320kbps and download 320kbps files in our mobile apps."

So does Spotify.

Chris Duncan
___________________________________________

Hey Bob.  Obviously Hyman is biased…but he’s right on all counts.
But your point is well-taken…the superior product often doesn’t win.

-Joe Zelek

___________________________________________

iTunes isn’t exactly super user/discovery friendly. Spotify is great AND it’s social. Full Stop.

Jed Weitzman