Not long after Facebook’s f8 Developers Conference where a dozen or so digital music services celebrated their closer integrating with Facebook, the reality hit Spotify and MOG users that the companies made changes to their registration policy that requires all new users to log in to their accounts with a Facebook ID. Rdio and Rhapsody did not make the changes.
Message boards soon were chock full of and Spotify issued two statements about the change, the second one saying: “As most of our users are already social and have already connected to Facebook, it seemed logical to integrate Spotify and Facebook logins.”
Commenting on the arrangement earlier this week, a Facebook representative told the NY Times that “Spotify chose to provide a social music experience to all of its users so it’s easy to discover music with friends from the get-go. This is similar to how apps built on Facebook work, such as Farmville and Washington Post Reader, where every user is a Facebook user. When users log in to an app with Facebook, the expectation is set upfront that they will be engaging in social mode within the app.”
Questions also spread whether Facebook had required Spotify to make the change as part of their deal.
Daniel Ek, Spotify CEO, spent time 9/26 explaining the change on his Twitter account answering questions from users: “We’ll try lots of things, and probably screw up from time to time,” he wrote, “but we value feedback and will make changes based on it.”
RBR-TVBR observation: It seems that Spotify and MOG were so excited about the Facebook integration that they forgot about their existing users and put the blinders on for gaining new ones. There are plenty of internet companies like Disqus allowing sign-ins using social media sites, but many of them are optional, allowing the original account sign-in option as well. Bottom line, it’s an inconvenience to no longer be allowed into an online account after you’ve been a member for years. Spotify and MOG should have offered both options.
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