What do I have in common with my friends?

I have both Rdio and Spotify accounts. At the moment I use Spotify more because I find both it’s iPhone and Desktop apps better, but decisions regarding Facebook login got me thinking about what I like (and dislike) about both services.

They both feel halfway there. Actually a third of the way there - neither of them are available in enough places for the social part of their services to shine.

Without a change in direction, I don’t see the social part of Spotify ever shining for me. Facebook is great for staying in touch with friends (best address book I ever had), but Spotify make the same mistake as many do when integrating Facebook - assuming friendship is everything. I had meaningful interactions with my friends before Facebook, but the web in general is amazing because of it’s potential to engineer value exchanges, and eventually relationships between complete strangers. This is one of the strongest points of Twitter.

Rdio’s embrace of following, rather than relying on a copy of my friendship graph from Facebook allow me to get music from people I find interesting and potential share taste with. Spotify assumes the people I became friends with through shared experiences like school, university and work will also be the people I look to for music. Not really true.

So now I wait for Spotify to understand this, or for Rdio to decide (or have the resources that allow them to admit) that wrapping their website in a thin native shell is not enough for a desktop app.