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Spotify is a free, legal, cloud-based streaming music service delivered via desktop software with a nice social twist. A Swedish start-up with offices in London, it launched back in 2008 in Europe and now boasts around five million users and around six million tracks from the major labels as well as a ton of independents.

Currently only available in Sweden, Norway, Finland, the UK, France and Spain (technically), Spotify has previously talked about plans for expansion — including a U.S. launch later this year, the exact date of which is TBD.

The basic version of Spotify is free to use for anyone who manages to grab an invite (either via another user or through a waiting list-based e-mail sign-up), although consumers can skip the ad-supported free option and choose to sign up for its £9.99 per month (approx $15) “Premium” service that also gives you access to Spotify’s mobile apps — and more — which we’ll explore in a later post.

But for now, here’s a quick guide to getting started on the entry-level version of Spotify, taking you through the sign-up process to more interesting options such as how to start sharing your music.

Signing Up

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Once you get your e-mail invite, there’s a direct link within it to set-up your account which is a standard username/password affair. However, be careful when you select your username, as it’s not possible to change it — to do so would mean you’ll have to re-register which will mean begging around for another invite.

When you’ve created an account you need to download the software (which works with Windows XP/Vista/7, Mac OS X 10.4.0 and up, and Linux using Wine) via the installer option which is the usual save file, double-click, choose where you want it process as far as a Windows install goes.

With a Spotify account, you can sign in anywhere via a connected computer and download the software, although you can only play music on one computer at a time.

Start Finding Music

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With the simple sign-up process complete, there are now several ways for you to start gathering content. The quickest is search, via the search box which does offer fuzzy “did you mean” options if you aren’t quite sure whether it’s “Byork” or “Bjork.”

If you’re impatient to hear some tunes, you can start listening to music right away while you’re looking for more — just search, click on the track or album you want and it’ll start playing immediately.

Another option is via browsing, which is link-based, so you need to initiate at least one search before you can start surfing. But once you do, almost everything you see in Spotify is clickable — artist names, album titles, years, genres, styles, tracks, playlist titles, etc. — starting you off on a click-through-fest which could take you days to return from.

Clicking through on an artist’s name will give you that artist’s homepage which offers an “overview” including a pic, brief bio, top hits, related artists (always good for new music discovery) and then a scrollable list of albums, complete with artwork. Some artists also offer a longer biography, too.

More advanced text-based search options include the ability to narrow down your search from a general keyword search to a more focused effort. These work along the following lines — to search for a song with the word “prince” in the title, enter “title:prince,” or search for “album:prince” or “artist:prince” to find matching albums and artists.

Other ways to find music are by hitting the “Home” option on the right-hand side menu which offers a “What’s New” selection as well as “Top Lists” which lets you browse playlists, including an option to see what’s hot in your country, as well as others.

Creating Playlists

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Once you have found tracks you like it’s easy to start making playlists. Just click “New Playlist” from the menu on the right-hand side and name it.

Then you can either drag and drop tracks, or you can right-click a track or an album and select “Save To” which will bring up the roster of your existing playlists. You can control and click to select multiple songs. A single Spotify playlist can store up to 10,000 tracks.

Sharing Songs and Playlists

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Anyone with Spotify can listen to your songs or playlists through Spotify’s sharing options. You can either right-click on a playlist and select “Copy HTTP Link” which will generate a link along the lines of
http://open.spotify.com/user/username/playlist/692nO7eEkPIsoZiijxhlk8. When anyone clicks that link it will open Spotify and show your shared music.

You can also share through Twitter, Facebook and Delicious by right-clicking, selecting “Share To,” which will give you the three sites as clickable options.

If you want to make sharing a more interactive effort, then right-click on your playlist and check the “Collaborative Playlist” option. This means that others can add songs to your playlist by opening it in Spotify and adding tunes — this feature is impressive and works almost in real-time.

Listening to Spotify Radio

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Spotify’s radio options offer the usual genres — blues, country, jazz, disco, funk, etc. — and then also offer radio stations by decade, which is a nice touch. You can select as many genres as you’d like in order to generate a combined stream, so if for some bizarre reason you fancy a mix of country and techno, you can hit both those buttons to create a custom station.

The radio player offers a visual for all the songs playing and coming next, so if you spot something you’re desperate to hear two songs along, you can skip forward, or keep clicking back if you want Suicidal Tendencies’ I Feel Your Pain repeated 17 times.

Similar to competing sites like Last.fm, you can also choose to generate a radio playlist based on a favorite artist. Just click on the artist’s name link and select “Artist Radio.” The subsequent song list is generated from your chosen artist, as well as related artists.

Buying Songs

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Spotify does offer the option to purchase some songs through its download partner 7digital, although it will likely be a different company when the service launches in the U.S.

Any songs with an arrow in a circle under the “Buy” option can be purchased. Doing so for the first time generates a quick small print message to agree to before giving you the option to add credit or debit card details. At this point Spotify will give you one-click buying options, or the choice to enter your password.

The next time you want to buy a track you don’t need to enter you card details again, just click to confirm the purchase, which is devilishly easy, so do watch those Spotify spending sprees if you’re on a budget.

As well as downloading to the Spotify client, the music is also downloaded to your computer. You can set where you want it to save to in the preferences, otherwise it saves to default locations such as My Docs/My Music on a PC.

The files are DRM-free MP3s, from 192kbps to 320kbps, and can be downloaded several times (the number of which is dependent on the track and label) then transferred to an MP3 player or burned to a CD from your computer.

That’s All, Folks

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That should be more than enough to get you up and running with Spotify. If you’re looking for an invite and don’t know a current Premium user to ask for one, you can sign-up your e-mail address on the Spotify site (just hit the “Getting Started” button) to go on the waiting list.

Are you a Spotify user? How do you like it? Share your thoughts about the service in the comments below.

More HOW TO resources from Mashable:

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- HOW TO: Keep Your Facebook Updates Private
– HOW TO: Integrate Facebook, Twitter and Buzz into Your Gmail
– HOW TO: Add Captions To Your YouTube Videos
– HOW TO: Create Custom Backgrounds for Twitter, YouTube, & MySpace

Tags: delicious, facebook, how to, music, social media, spotify, twitter

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