Spotify Aussie launch, Twitter turns six and Samsung Galaxy S3—Three Things!

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Spotify
Thanks largely to Steve and his iPod, the way we consume music has changed dramatically over the last ten years. Apple has forced the music industry, with its iTunes store, into online digital sales. Now of course, the industry is all over it!

But shit is changing once again; the iTunes model where we buy music to keep as a downloaded file is being challenged. The advent of cheap, fast Internet everywhere has meant that streaming services are very viable. Ironically, the iPhone has spearheaded this change.

Swedish company Spotify, the biggest and most popular music streaming service has been running since 2006. Using an ad-supported model, Spotify streams music for ‘free’ to more than 10 million customers in 13 countries. Naturally, due to the retarded nature of the music industry, Australia has yet to join those 13 other lucky countries.

The fanfare for the American launch last year

The music service has a strong social aspect, not seen since Napster. It integrates with Facebook so you can see what your friends are listening to. You also can search the playlists of other users, that have a high level of relevance to your taste.

The experience is rounded out with iOS and Android apps that let you stream your music on the go and, with the premium service, you can even store offline copies for those times you’re not hooked into the network.

The majority of music-going Australians are yet to experience Spotify. It’s launching this week, so be prepared to find out what all your ex-pat friends in London and NYC are talking about.

[I’ll have a bigger review soon]

Happy 6^th Birthday Twitter
Using Twitter is like cat ownership—I believe they call it fancying. Cat owners fucking love their cats and will talk about them all the time. The rest of us stare in amazement and wonder what they see in such a selfish, lazy animal.

Have I pissed you off cat-lovers? Of course I have and your cat wants to scratch my face off.

Here's how it all started

Twitter just turned 6 years old today. Co-founder Jack Dorsey sent the first tweet on 22^nd March 2006. Like cat-years, this is a long time in tech-years. From its humble beginnings, Twitter has transformed short messaging into an online phenomenon.

In 6 years, Twitter has transformed the way we talk online. Almost anything you do on your phone can be condensed into 140 characters and tweeted to your audience of tens, hundreds, thousands… millions.

Whether it’s helping fans to communicate directly with their idols, allowing friends to exchange ideas or empowering downtrodden peoples to stand against their governments; twitter has changed the social landscape across the globe.

Any company with any hint of marketing panache is on Twitter. All the geeks are there. If you own an Apple device, you’re likely to be on Twitter. If you’re gay—you’re on Twitter and you’re following your diva (choose from Gaga, Beyoncé, Rihanna, Ricky Martin, Kylie, Mariah or Madonna—oh wait, no one likes her anymore—REOW!).

My twitter number is 10,238,452 (2007). If you join now, your twitter number will be in excess of 532,478,220. 140 million of those users are active and an average of 340 million tweets are sent per day. Twitter is also worth more than $4 billion. Yup, it has exploded.

Samsung Galaxy SIII
Released last year, Sammy’s flagship phone, Galaxy SII has actually been selling well. But it has been playing second fiddle to the iPhone 4/4S in terms of popularity.

But Sammy now has iPhone in its sights with the pending release of the Galaxy SIII.

The phone is supposed to be better than its predecessor in every way (as you’d expect). With a rumoured 1.5GHz, quad core processor, it’s going to be crunching data like no other phone. Some folks say it’ll have 1GB of RAM—I’ve even seen 2GB quoted!

The display is rumoured to be very big at 4.8” (not the biggest though) and should sport a resolution of 1080p (that’s the same as your HD flat screen TV). If this is the case, folks are going to go ape shit over this phone.

To top it all off, rumour has it that the camera will be a whopping 16 megapixels and will have the ability to shoot 30 x 8 megapixel stills per second and 60FPS HD video.

What you might gather from how I've worded this is that we don’t really know anything—much the same as an Apple product launch, only we know even less.

The final rumour is that punters should expect this phone to drop in the next two months or so.

Good timing—it’s just before the Olympics, of which Samsung is a principal sponsor. But it’s also before the release of the iPhone 5—which we’re expecting around August. It doesn’t matter how good your phone’s specs are, you’d want to net some sales before a new iPhone comes along.

Good luck Sammy—you’re gonna need it this year.