As the competition fires up between iTunes and Spotify with the release of Spotify’s new social features, two big questions arise: Will Spotify’s social shift be enough to trump the big Apple? And what’s the difference in their social features anyway?

One thing is for sure, the new Spotify has an impressive lineup of social capabilities. To see it in action we recommend checking out the video on their site. Put simply, Spotify has evolved dramatically from its music player origins. It is now a bundle of cloud-sharing, music-profiling, group-rating goodness. But how does it stack up the market leader, iTunes.

Here’s our tale of the tape, pitting the social features of Spotify versus iTunes:

iTunes is still playing the same tune. The closest it gets to social is its local network sharing, which was a big hit in college dorms, but now its looking behind the times.

But don’t expect Apple to go down without a fight. There was speculation of iTunes becoming more social back in 2009. As of late, there is word that it will implement Facebook Connect, and its Apple’s recent takeover of Lala means we can expect a big musical iTunes cloud soon as well.

Despite being the first out of the gate on many neat sharing features, Spotify remains severely limited by its geographic coverage area, as it is only available in six European countries. So, it’s a network of Scandanavians, Brits and the French. What about the Yanks and Italians? We want in too! Nonetheless, its looking like a race against the clock for Spotify to get their legal permissions in the US.