
In a previous blog I attributed iTune’s success to the convenience of its ecosystem. But is the convenience of music streaming a threat to iTunes’ dominance? Facebook Co-Founder Chris Hughes reported in a My Tech Essentials profile that he couldn’t live without two music technologies that reflect perhaps the next evolution in the convenience of music: Spotify Premium and a Sonos speaker system. To see what the fuss was all about, I asked my wife for the Sonos system as a birthday present and I took advantage of the Spotify 30 day free trial. Although each of the Sonos system and Spotify separately facilitates convenience, I consider them together. I had this vision of sitting in my screen porch and listening to whatever in the world I want to listen to, on demand. I have no wires on the porch to connect to my home entertainment system, and no hardware for listening, so this plan appeared to be the best option.
First I set up the Sonos system. It was incredibly easy. Setup requires a quick download and then pushing buttons on a Bridge that ties into your router and a button on your Sonos Component, in this case a Play5 that my wife bought at Costco. For a moment I couldn’t find the button on the Play 5, until I realized it was upside down… Did you realize the word “SONOS” looks the same upside down? Once I turned it over I finished setup in minutes. I have been using the free Spotify for months and raved about it in a blog in the Saporta Report. To me, the main advantage of Premium Spotify, aside from not having to listen to ads every 2 or 3 songs, is that it can be used on multiple devices to listen to whatever in the world you want to listen to, on demand. (I haven’t tried using it to make playlists yet.) So I can access Spotify using my iPad Mini (or iPad or iPhone) to play music through Sonos. I have also been using Spotify on my iPhone (without Sonos) as an alternative to my music.

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