The-Electric-Daily

Simply put, Spotify RULES!!!  Watch the video and see why.  Spotify is an online web service where you can listen to a seemingly infinite amount of songs from their servers (with 10,000 more added each day), listen to your songs locally (similar to iTunes), star your favorite music, share on FB & Twitter, connect with your friends by dragging and dropping songs into their inbox & even collaborating on virtual mix tapes and these are just off the top of my head.  I love it but I have heard mixed reviews from different people, saying

“why do I need this service? I’ve got this and that etc…”

I would answer that with this

“Spotify is a ton of music all in one place, available anywhere, all while being socially integrated, making listening to music from just about any artist virtually effortless and sharing all of that with your friends even more so, basically it’s the best of all services rolled up into one.”

I would also say,

“stop resisting change and embrace new technology/web services and enjoy the music.  While your at it, connect with me and share what you are listening to & while you are at that drop your archaic Yahoo or Hotmail account, and get with Gmail already.”

With every new online web service or application, there is always a resistance from the public (with criticism surely to follow) and I understand that not everyone is an early adopter or excited by new technology and developments on the web.  If that were the case, everyone would have that Gmail account, but I digress.  The creativity and technology out there on the web is amazing, with new apps and services popping up daily and it is a shame to not take advantage.

Spotify is in Beta and you have to request an invite here,  but it only took them a few hours to respond to my request and I was up and running in a matter of minutes.  Another option is to give a shout out to your friends asking if they have invites to spare.  Premiums services offer no advertising and mobile features, allowing you to take it anywhere.

Spotify creds:

Seth Hall

@middle8media

What I am rockin' these days. http://t.co/qsI2te7 #M8Mapps

June 25, 2011 3:51 am via Twitter for MacReplyRetweetFavorite

@middle8media

Seth Hall ✪

http://applist.me/rq9FgC

Mail clients are a dime a dozen these days.  It seems that every day there is a new Gmail extension or app, a new way to experience Gmail in your browser or on your desktop.  I have tried several of these over the years, looking for that perfect email experience, but after many trails and errors, I always went back to Mac Mail, because I love all things Apple and staying Mac native when possible, seems to work best for me.  Well that was then.  Don’t get me wrong, I still love Mac Mail, I just don’t use it anymore.  I started feeling the weight of that “heavy email client” and I wanted something lighter, something simpler, something like Tweetie Mac App (now Twitter for Mac).

Sidenote: Atebits, the genius behind Tweetie, set the standard for Twitter clients, both on Mac and iOS, so much so that other devs started copying them, so much so that, to an extent, Apple copied them with the new and improved Mac Mail for OSX Lion, so much so that Twitter done went and hired Loren Brichter as an official developer.  Man talk about having your finger on the Twitter pulse.  In the process of hiring him, Twitter excelled with the official Mac App but destroyed the official iOS app.

Continued Digression: During the whole #dickbar fiasco and after horrible updates and bugs, I ditched Twitter iOS for the amazing Tweetbot by Tapbots

Anyway, a few weeks ago I came across a Gmail Mac App called Sparrow – the new mail for mac.  I read about it on blogs and saw it in the Mac App store on sale for $10.  Upon visiting their website I noticed they offered a free version that had a few “limitations” (one account, ad-supported and the “Sent with Sparrow” tag at the end of every email).  As I perused, I noticed excellent design and UI, it looked simple, it looked easy, it looked Mac native…it looked like Tweetie..aka…now Twitter.  It looked awesome!!!  So… I decided to take a leap of faith and make the switch.  (which some of you may know, can take a while with setting up accounts, synching mail, contacts, labels etc…)  First of all, it was free.  Second, I route all of my email accounts through my main Gmail account, so the one account “limitation” was no big deal.  Third, the ads were unobtrusive (I actually found myself clicking a few of them).  And last, since I love the app, I am happy to promote the devs with the “Sent with Sparrow” tag.  Win, Win, Win!!!  Sweet!!!

I won’t go into the details of the app.  I encourage you to give it a try for yourself.  I will say that Sparrow is perfect for my email needs and the switch proved worthy and does so everyday.  It has breathed new life into the daily task that is emails and that is a big deal. Thanks Sparrow.  Thanks for making my workday better.

P.S. – Sparrow has a great blog with tips and trick to help you get started.  Enjoy!!!

Tapbots is a two man developer team.  They are real genius.  They make my favorite iOS apps, which I use on a regular basis.  Tweetbot is my favorite Twitter client.  That is all.

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