[jinushaun]

Logically, in order for Spotify to survive, it must develop a platform for artists to market themselves therefore bypassing the labels. During the height of MySpace there were countless stories of new artists being discovered on there. The iTunes music store also has that potential, but Apple doesn't seem interested in going down that road.

Spotify has a long way to go before that happens though. Its music discovery features are almost worthless. The What's New section lists nothing I care to listen to. It would also be nice to see tour dates and real social features.

[Fluxx]

The dirty little secret about "music discovery" is that most people don't spend time discovering music. Sure I do because I really like music a lot. I regularly read Pitchfork and Stereogum and listen to a lot of music. But I'm in the minority on this. 90% of society (America, for me) listen to the radio to learn about new music or occasionally get exposed to new stuff through their friend - but they're certainly not spending hours of their day playing song samples on Stereogum.

I think this is why Pandora is so popular. People can pick something they know, turn the station on and just treat it like the radio. The sad thing is that if they hear something they like on Pandora, all you can do is thumbs up it, which then can be retrieved later by finding a link buried deep in your profile...a place most Pandora users never go.

[nextparadigms]

The artists must start to learn how to use social media and build their own communities, and then sell directly to their fans. Google Artist Hub is allowing them to do this:

http://music.google.com/artists/