According to this article Spotify is doing quite well in the US so far.  Unverified sources say that it has over 1.4 million users, but the especially interesting (and very important!) statistic is that they already have over 175,000 paying subscribers in the US.  

That’s critical, because for a subscription model like theirs to succeed, a significant number of users have to convert to paying subscribers.  This means that those enjoying the free level of service will continue to be able to do so, and those who are paying customers can hope that the money coming in will encourage whatever holdouts there are to start making their music available via Spotify and other services too.

Plus, a high number of subscribers will definitely make Apple sit up and take notice, and that will make for interesting times!

If you live in the US, go to the Spotify web site to sign up to take part in the beta.  It’s not guaranteed when you’ll get in, but at least get on the list sooner rather than later if interested!

For the most part this LA Times article on Spotify has the usual info., but it had one piece of info of great interest to me: Spotify has a deal in place in the US with Merlin, the aggregator of licensing rights for so much independent music.

That’s very important for me and anyone else who likes lots of lesser known / off the beaten path artists and/or musical genres. I’m very glad to see this!  Now I’m starting to get genuinely excited for Spotify’s US launch.

I’ll be keeping an eye out if Spotify does indeed launch in the US soon. If it does I’ll be sure to quickly bring first impressions followed up by a longer review.

Some interesting details on Spotify’s ongoing negotiations with US labels.