If Grooveshark's growth over the past two quarters is any indication of its trajectory in the new year, 2010 should be a groovy time for the young music site.

What's the hook? You can go to Grooveshark and play, for free and in reasonably high fidelity, pretty much any song you can think to search for.

In addition to making your own playlists, you can network with other Grooveshark members and learn about new music from people you consider (or come to consider) 'taste makers'.

You can upload your own music to share with other listeners, and when somebody else buys a song that you've uploaded, you get credited.

Too good to be true? At first Grooveshark's business model sounded fishy to me - it seemed like blood in the water for the sharks who work in the legal departments of the record labels. (How many fish gags can I fit in here?)

But Grooveshark offers some tempting bait for the labels, too: if you hear a stream you like, you can easily buy it from iTunes or Amazon in higher sound quality than that of the free streaming song (labels profit).

And in theory, the social networking aspect of Grooveshark keeps the conversation about music going, and promotes more song sales (labels profit).

However, whether Grooveshark can challenge Spotify's popularity will remain to be seen, as it after all offers a very similar service to Spotify, which is already hugely popular.

Wow, it's pretty awesome thanks for this link =)

Got a better music selection than spotify ^_^

Certainly does so far, think I'll have to build up the playlist