音樂：丹尼爾?埃克

Spotify公司CEO兼聯合創始人

????數年以來，Spotify一直是最熱門的音樂服務網站，但美國人卻始終無緣享用。由于看好美國市場的發展前景，并且經過深思熟慮，Spotify從斯德哥爾摩遠涉重洋登陸美國的旅程可謂轟轟烈烈，充滿了承諾、猜測以及與唱片公司之間曠日持久的許可權談判。Spotify終于登陸美國（7月，Spotify在美國上線），這家由丹尼爾?埃克成立的音樂流媒體服務公司已經做好準備，立意顛覆美國本土音樂愛好者音樂消費的方式，復制它在歐洲的成功。

????美國一直都不缺“自助式”音樂服務，但沒有一家能像Spotify一樣，提供簡單、快速、合法的獨立應用，使用戶可以免費收聽和分享1，300多萬張唱片。美國音樂訂閱服務商Rhapsody要求每月預付訂閱費，而Spotify則使用一種免費+增值的模式。免費服務含廣告，且每月可以播放音樂的時間，以及同一首歌可以收聽的次數都受到限制。而最佳服務計劃則可以使用戶在手機上存儲歌曲。Spotify利用廣告銷售的收入和訂閱費來支付唱片公司和音樂家的費用。

????而且，埃克還創建了一種新潮的用戶體驗，效果甚至超過了iTunes。盡管iTunes比Spotify提供的音樂多出一百萬首，但它要求用戶預付費，并且在完全收聽之前，必須等待下載。而埃克則相信，如果能夠將整個音樂目錄免費向用戶開放，最終他們會被吸引進來，愿意支付訂閱費。哪種方法更優秀？還得用數字來說話。截至目前，Spotify在歐洲的用戶達到1，500萬人，其中超過75萬人為付費用戶。

Music: Daniel Ek

CEO and co-founder, Spotify

????For years, Spotify was the hot music service that Americans couldn't get their hands on. Its journey across the pond from Stockholm was fueled by promises, speculation, and drawn-out licensing negotiations with record labels. Now that it's here (Spotify launched in the U.S. in July), the music streaming service founded by Daniel Ek seems poised to transform the way stateside listeners consume music, just as it did in Europe.

????"All-you-can-eat" music services have existed in the U.S for some time, but none of them work quite like Spotify, a simple, fast, and legal stand-alone application that lets users listen to and share the service's 13 million-plus tracks for free. Whereas Rhapsody requires upfront monthly paid subscriptions, Spotify uses a freemium model. The free tier is ad-supported and places caps on the number of hours that music can be streamed and the number of times a song can be listened to each month. Premium plans let users go mobile and store songs on their mobile devices. Spotify uses money from ad sales and subscription fees to compensate labels and artists.

????Ek also created a snappy user experience that outpaces even iTunes, which offers about a million more songs than Spotify but makes users pay upfront and wait for tracks to download before listening to them in full. Ek put stock in the belief that if you open up the entire music catalog to users for free, they will eventually get sufficiently hooked to pony up those subscription fees. The numbers speak for themselves. To date Spotify reaches 15 million users in Europe, more than 750,000 of whom are paying customers.