There are quite a few music streaming services available; for an up to date list see here. Unfortunately, most music streaming services are not available outside of the USA or the UK. This obviously has to do with the digital rights, and the deals with the big record companies.
In The Netherlands, the following services are available.
Spotify
Spotify was launched in Sweden in 2008, and has since expanded to Norway, Finland, Spain, France, the UK and The Netherlands.
Spotify is an application you install on either a PC or a Mac. With the application you can browse through an extensive number of songs, and play these songs on your computer. The free version has (audio) advertisements after each couple of songs. The lowest entry subscription model removes the ads. Much more interesting is the premium subscription model. This allows you to store music locally (offline, so you can also play the music if you do not have internet connection). Additionally, the quality of the music (the bitrate) is higher. The best, however, is the fact that you can use an iPhone app to stream songs from Spotify on your iPhone, or download them to your iPhone for playback in offline mode.
Spotify has included some social network features, for instance by allowing to share playlists among Facebook friends. This has however been done in a very basic way. Especially if a lot of Facebook friends use Spotify, it becomes an extensive job to sift through everyone’s playlists. Let’s hope this improves in next versions.
Grooveshark
Grooveshark does not require you to download an application. Instead, you can play music from your browser. Similar to Spotify, you can search for music, create playlists, and do social things through Facebook. Most notable is Grooveshark Radio, which recommends (and plays) music according to the songs you have played before; comparable to iTunes Genius. The basic version of Grooveshark is free. There is also a paid version, which removes banners and provides (limited) additional functionality.
Contrary to Spotify, the music is not offered through the large record companies, but rather through users uploading music. This has already led to legal issues, but not to the extent that the service had to be removed.
Grooveshark also has a mobile app for the iPhone, but since it has not (yet) been approved by Apple, it can only be installed on jailbroken iPhones.
Deezer
Deezer is also a web browser basic music streamer. Its music collection is smaller than Spotify and Grooveshark, and since it is of French origin, a lot of music is French. Deezer has a free iPhone app.
ShareTheMusic
The idea behind ShareTheMusic is that users make their own (legally acquired) music collection available. This is done through an application that has to be installed (PC only). Listeners can search for music, and stream it directly from the one that made the music available. Because the music cannot be downloaded, and only one listeners can listen to a certain song at a time (i.e. it is no radio), ShareTheMusic claim that what they do is legal.
ShareTheMusic also has recommendation features. Because of the nature of the service, they claim they are the only (legal) streaming service that provide Beatles music.
To be able to listen to a certain song, the user ‘hosting’ the song obviously has to be online and started up the ShareTheMusic service; this determines to a great deal the success of the service.
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