Tag: Spotify

Spotify Launches Play Button Widget
Big news today for your favorite music streaming platform. No, not Pandora. Let’s start this again.

Big news today for Spotify.

The music streaming service is announcing that they are partnering with several high-profile sites to launch their new Spotify Play Button. Essentially, this is an embeddable widget that lets you post Spotify playlists to any blog, Tumblr or website. That sounds good so far. Here’s the skinny straight from Spotify:

The new Spotify Play Button makes it easier than ever to deliver all the world’s music to your online fans. No more distracting banners and pop ups, no more legal takedowns, just millions of songs available in top quality audio.

Spotify claims bragging rights to several partners in the launch, including:
And, true to form, all these partners are very excited to be working with Spotify on this launch. Spin.com, for example, is putting Spotify Play Buttons in its reviews section. Handy.

Moviefone put together a playlist of “The Best Songs in Cinema” to showcase the Play Button capabilities.

People Magazine did a playlist about “what really matters” in beauty. The playlist is called “Beauty and the Beats” and features tunes by Christina Aguilera, P!nk, Cyndi Lauper and Beyonce.

Entertainment Weekly did three playlists to get thing rolling over there: EW Recommends This Week; The EW Ultimate 2012 Playlist; and EW’s 30 Greatest Artists Right now [sic].

Arianna Huffington over at HuffPost shared her own personal playlist, called simply “Arianna’s Favorites“. It includes tracks by Willie Nelson, Alpha Blondy, The Decembrists, and Fleet Foxes.

Tumblr was excited about the news:

Listen to this! We just teamed up with Spotify so you can post tracks, playlists, and full albums from their very extensive library. Search for tracks or paste a Spotify link to embed your music — without the daily limit. 🙂

To celebrate, we’ve put together this playlist featuring musicians from theTumblr Spotlight. Hit play and enjoy!

So, it’s all just wonderful, right? Anybody can listen to your Spotify playlist on your blog or Tumblr now, right?

Sorry, there is a wrinkle in the plan. It might not seem like a big one, but bear with me. If you’ve tried to follow the links above and play those playlists, some of you know this already.

Unlike Youtube embeds, where anyone can view the video, even without a YouTube account, the Spotify Play Button requires you to sign up for Spotify before it will work. In fact, you not only have to have an account, you have to have the Spotify app installed on the computer you are on.

So, if you are at work and have an itchy IT department, too bad. If you are at a library, computer lab or someplace else you can’t install what you want, tough luck, It won’t play.

But, hold up. What if you CAN install Spotify? The question now becomes, do you want to? Unlike the invite-only days when I first got my Spotify account (and went Premium – I love the thing), you now have no choice about signing up for Spotify through Facebook. It’s the only way in.

This may not seem like a big deal now, but this “sign up via Facebook” stuff is going to get old. Look at the opinions of Facebook that have come to light with the Instagram buy. It’s not what it used to be. It’s invasive, it’s gaudy, and it is getting tiresome. Users want to have more control over their Facebook experience, not less. But, outfits like Spotify (and Pinterest) are now forcing Facebook integration down our throats.

You know what happens when you sign up for Spotify through Facebook, then start playing tracks? This:

This is my FB ticker. Those are tracks that a friend is listening to. He does not know that I can see all that. Last night he had a solid hour of bump and grind music in my ticker. Good for him. I guess. You shouldn’t have to do a morning Facebook walk of shame because Spotify wanted to integrate with the biggest kid on the block. Of course, you can go hunt around for the “listen privately” function in Spotify. It’s moved into different menus three times in the last year and even been disabled completely before. Bad form, Spotify. Give us the option to uncouple our music from our Timeline.

So, the Play Button is cool – if you managed to get a Spotify account before the Facebook integration went in. Then again, the fine folks at Spotify and Facebook may just bank on people like me being an anomaly. You know, people who don’t like being bent over? There are plenty of other sheep. Maybe they figure the only way they’re going to survive that early period when people are doubting their business model – that period when artists and labels are skeptical about their legal streaming notions – is to shove it socially on as many people as possible to get some momentum. Get an API out there and launch tons of flimsy apps and integration around the web so there is no choice. It’s too bad a good idea has to stoop to this.

Happy streaming.
April 11, 2012
Boxee’s Spotify App Gets A Major Update

Boxee has announced a major update to the Spotify app on their all-in-one streaming media box. The new app brings quite a few new features that users have been requesting including search, an updated inbox, and improved shuffle functionality.

The new search function makes it easier to find tracks, artists, or albums you want to hear. The major draw of Spotify’s service is the ability to listen to any song from their catalog whenever you want, and to add it to your playlists. The addition of a search function to the Boxee app makes this much easier. The updated inbox allows you to know instantly when someone shares a playlist, song, or album with you. In addition to the new inbox, the update also brings notification icons that will pop up when someone has shared something with you.

Check out a couple screen shots of the new Spotify app’s search feature and updated inbox:

As with all Spotify apps (other than the desktop app), using Spotify on your Boxee requires a Spotify Premium subscription, which costs $9.99 per month. A free trial is also available if you’re not a Spotify subscriber.

Do you have the new Spotify channel on your Boxee Box? What do you think of it? Let us know in the comments.

April 5, 2012
Spotify Launches History of Music Timeline

On the heels of Facebook’s new Timeline for fan pages feature, Spotify has launched its own ‘History of Music’ Timeline. The new Timeline dates back to 1000 AD, and facilitates a fan page destination where users can discover, listen to and share the history of music.

Music fans will be able to learn what year Elvis was born, or when Sinatra released his first record. Users can also sample and relive musical eras, and remind themselves of when Nirvana’s “Nevermind” was put out. And Spotify will be adding a huge amount of historical music data in the coming weeks, as well as keeping users up to date regarding the latest musical trends. Spotify will also encourage users to relate their own seminal music histories, which will also aid in the evolution of the ‘History of Music’ Timeline.

Dave Altarescu, US Marketing Director for Spotify, has stated, “It’s impossible to even begin to capture every important moment in music, but the new Facebook Timeline has enabled us to at least start out on this musical journey and discover some incredible facts we never knew. We hope music fans will dive in and enjoy these amazing milestones as well as contribute to keep our Spotify Timeline evolving.”

As of late, Spotify has been in the news over royalty disputes with the RIAA. It had been mentioned that Spotify could possibly go by the way of Limewire if an agreement isn’t eventually reached.

March 30, 2012
Spotify, Echo Nest APIs Get Integration To Make Apps More Dev-Friendly

Spotify and The Echo Nest have a new API integration. Sure, there were plenty of app integrations between the two before, but now a combined API offering should make things easier on developers.

“Integrating Spotify’s artist and song IDs creates an efficiency where the developer now only has to use one ID structure to have access to The Echo Nest’s rich music data platform along with the streaming music of Spotify as well as our other partners in Rosetta Stone,” Shane Tobin, Director of Strategic Partnerships at The Echo Nest tells WebProNews.

Rosetta Stone, if you’re not familiar, is a service that translates song and artist identifiers between music content and data APIs, including Twitter, Facebook, Lycicfind, MusixMatch, 7Digital, EMI, Free Music Archive, MusicBrainz, Rdio and Seatwave. The Echo Nest says it also makes it easy to leverage its core music discovery and personalization features within a Spotify app.

Twitter connects verified accounts to it to enable developers a way to integrate tweets from artists into their apps.

With the new API integration, apps can play display lyrics while playing songs, for example. Tweets and Facebook updaters from artists can be displayed, as can ticket offers. There are plenty more possibilities, and they stand to make Spotify better for users, depending on the apps they use.

Spotify revealed its third-party app platform last last year. “Spotify has called its app platform the company’s biggest announcement since it launched, and rightfully so,” a representative from The Echo Nest tells us “In the first three months that Spotify apps were available, music fans listened to over 1,500 years of music within them.”

“Giving the best app developers the tools to create amazing music apps is one of many areas where Spotify and The Echo Nest are driving the digital music industry forward,” she adds.

The Echo Nest believes every Spotify app that relies on playlisting, personalization or discovery can benefit from the partnership.

March 29, 2012
Study: Social Media Complements Traditional Media

According to a new Swedish study, young people who are big users of Internet social media do not abandon traditional media. Instead, the two are used together. Almost all 9- to 24-year-olds use the internet. Most of them do so daily, and the older they are, the more they use it. Yet, this does not mean that they have ceased using traditional media, says Professor Olle Findahl, who has conducted a study on young people’s media habits on behalf of NORDICOM at the University of Gothenburg, Sweden.

People in this age group do watch TV and listen to radio and recorded music somewhat less today than 30 years ago. The same trend can be observed for reading, especially when it comes to educational textbooks and nonfiction. However, children and adolescents still use traditional media more than the internet. In fact, schoolchildren (age 9-14) spend a whole 75 percent of their media time on traditional media; for the age group 15-24 the proportion is 60 percent.

Similar to what happened when television came about in the 1950s, it seems like people use the internet to complement and not substitute older media. The internet provides young people with music and films. Then there is the entirely new behavior that is made possible through social networks – contacts with like-minded individuals who share the same interests.

Facebook has a greater reach among young people than newspapers, and almost the same reach as TV. And the reach of the digital music service Spotify comes close to that of radio. However, this does not mean that everything that has to do with the internet automatically becomes popular. For example, relatively few young people use tablet computers, e-books and Twitter. Those are largely adopted by adults and business people. Yet the use of smartphones has increased by several hundred percent in only two years.

It should be noted that there is no direct negative correlation between internet use and the use of traditional media. Instead, the most intense internet users are also heavy consumers of traditional media.

March 26, 2012
Billboard Adding Digital Music Services To Chart

There is no doubt that digital music streaming is here to stay. In fact, there’s been no doubt for a couple of years now. Services like Spotify, Rhapsody, Pandora, and more draw millions of users who find digital streaming a better alternative to listening to traditional radio stations.

Now it looks like Billboard is finally catching up to the digital music age. The magazine’s editorial director, Bill Werde, told the Wall Street Journal yesterday that Billboard’s song charts would start including certain digital music services in the data it uses to compile the charts. Charts are usually compiled based on radio plays and digital downloads. Digital music streaming risen significantly in recent months, and Werde said that it has “recently hit a critical mass,” prompting Billboard to start including it as a basis for their charts.

A total of six services are being incorporated into Billboard’s chart data: Spotify, Rhapsody, Rdio, MOG, Muve Music, and Slacker Radio. Notably absent from the list are Pandora and YouTube.

Are you glad Billboard is including streaming data? Should they have made this move before now? Are there any services you think they should add that aren’t on the list? Let us know in the comments.

March 14, 2012
Spotify Germany to Launch Tuesday

Germans will soon have to decide what article to assign “spotify,” when the new word enters their vernacular–and the web-based music streaming service enters their country–this Tuesday.

A representative for Spotify confirmed to WebProNews that the music service will be live in Germany Tuesday morning, under the leadership of Spotify’s Director for International Growth, Axel Bringeus. The launch will include a fully-functioning Spotify service, localized in German, consisting of over 16 million individual tracks, 10 new German app partners, and 2 exclusive advertising partners. The service will cost users €10 per month.

While the streaming service is currently available in 12 countries, including the United States and most of Western Europe, Tuesday marks its first foray into Europe’s largest economy. It’s unclear why exactly this launch has taken so long, but Germany’s strict licensing policies, under performance rights organization GEMA, are likely to blame (click here to read about new German legislation charging royalty fees to news aggregator sites). This is especially likely given Spotify’s recent royalty dispute with recording companies. Spotify attributes its patience in the German launch to a desire to hit the market at full capacity. “If you’re going to roll out a music service in a country like Germany, where the music fans rightfully demand excellence, you want to be sure everything is perfectly in place for launch,” said a representative. Spotify said does not comment on its commercial relationships.

Rival provider Grooveshark pulled out of Germany earlier this year, but Spotify will still have competition in the country from companies including the German Simfy, as well as international companies Rdio and Deezer.

German readers, I’m interested to hear if you’ll check out the new service. If you try it out, let us know what you think in the comments. Also, please tell me what genus “Spotify” will take. Bitte meldet euch!

March 12, 2012
Spotify Finds Their Calling With Desktop Apps.

Spotify is pleased to announce great success with their new desktop apps. Their director of platforms, Sten Garmark revealed some statistics on their success at the Beyond the Hype conference in London. One striking figure was the amount of time users spent inside Spotify apps overall; total hours used sums to 1500 years! With about 10 million users, that rounds-out to about 1.3 hours per listener.

Let’s take a look at their specific apps and some numbers for users:

SoundDrop app:

SoundDrop is a virtual room where users can create and listen to collaborative playlists. Here people listened to 15 million songs together.

Moodagent app:

Moodagent generates over 3.5 million playlists per week. Impressive!

TuneWiki app:

Tunewiki is a place where users transcribe and edit lyrics so others can view them as they listen to content. Over 100,000 songs have been synchronized.

Garmark comments on the apps and user’s overwhelming demand for them:

“They are important so we can cater to all those needs. And since people are asking us to provide these features, when we do, music will be more valuable to them. They will be more likely to pay, and that makes more money for artists.”

“We have to turn ourselves into the OS of music,”

“We are in the middle of a transformation from being an app ourselves to being a platform.”

“Everyone has their individual idea for what Spotify should do next, which is why we love music apps,”

“Users are telling us it’s like Pandora but better,”

With all of this interaction and collaboration taking place it really takes listeners back to the visceral experience people had with the recording industry back when records were first introduced. It was about imagination; who the artist was, what they were trying to say, how they lived their life. The art and the packaging really gave some substance to the recording. There was an element of mystery around recordings and music in general.

Garmark hits on these sentiments with his comments:

“In this digital age of music, the experience in some ways got reduced to just a track or a playlist. But with these apps, it can start getting back to the old way of immersing yourself in the album cover, or reading about the music while listening to it. And artists can use it to connect with their audience.”

“It’s a really interesting platform for artists and labels to really enhance the experience around the music,”

In case you were wondering about their eagerness to expand overtaking their creative artistry, Garmark offers an explanation:

“It’s a curated platform: we want to make sure the content is great, so we’re not just letting anyone release anything. We’re working with them to make sure it’s good. We don’t want our users to have crappy experiences with apps.”

I like what I hear, Spotify seems to be onto something with their apps and overall musical platform. I would like to see a renewed interest in digesting music as a meal as opposed to a bite sized candy for the ear.

March 6, 2012
Spotify and Artists Still Disagree Over Royalties

Spotify and artists are in the midst of a battle of sorts over royalties that each feel is deserved. The thing in question is, how much? How much is a digital stream worth? Some services pay more than others, some charge more to play than others.

If the record companies are to be believed, then as of right now, the average artist has to have their song streamed anywhere between 80 and 200 times for them to equal the amount of money earned from 1 digital download. When the numbers do not add up, and the artists and record labels refuse to move forward with their business model, things like Napster and Limewire happen. So how does the mold of the business model that the music industry runs on get changed?

All most labels see is the sheer numbers of streams vs. digital downloads. 200 streams equals $1, while 1 digital download equals $1. The void between these 2 needs to be closed. With a more dynamic paying system between up and coming services such as Spotify, and behemoths like iTunes, the industry will move forward more fluidly. Unless services that dominate the digital download service (iTunes) stop charging Coldplay rates for garage band tunes, the void will never be broached. Beacuse all the Labels will see is the all mighty dollar sign, not what was done to get there.

Because the digital music era is still in its infancy, the ability to look forward 20 years is way harder than to look back 20 years to see a new 10 track Michael Jackson album earn $20 a pop. As the industry pushes forward, and the digital age fully takes hold of the music industry, changes will happen and bands like Coldplay and Rihanna will show up on services like Spotify on day 1. Until then, the fight goes on.

@RobertAndrews
Robert AndrewsEMI’s @cosmolush to me on Coldplay streaming blackout: No comment. Spotify’s @britenation: We won’t play out rates debate in press 3 days ago via Mobile Web · Reply · Retweet · Favorite · powered by @socialditto

February 27, 2012
Spotify Update Includes Gapless Playback And Crossfade

Spotify announced the launch of some new features for “gapless playback” and crossfade. The features come with an update to its desktop version that is rolling out this week.

Gapless playback enables songs to play right after one another without pause. The company says this is ideal for dance and classical music in particular, as well as live recordings and concept albums.

The feature will be switched on by default, but you can adjust it in the preferences.

The crossfade feature enables users to set tracks to fade out and the next to fade in. “You can select the exact number of seconds you want your songs to crossfade (from 1 to 12 seconds) by visiting your Spotify Preferences and flipping the ‘on’ switch,” the company says.

Crossfade will need to be turned on in preferences.

Spotify also shares a quote from DJ Paul Okenfold, who says, “I use Spotify daily. Many of my own releases are mixed so I’m delighted to hear Spotify will now offer gapless playback and crossfade so my fans can experience the mixes on Spotify in the way they normally do in the clubs.”

Other new features of the update include: faster artist browsing ,sorting improvements, a new save/restore feature for “now playing,” subscribe ,buddy list and favorites improvements, drag and drop fix for Windows, a “hide purchases” button for premium users, and offline ode via the Spotify menu.

February 23, 2012
Bonnaroo Lineup Announced Via Spotify

The 11th annual Bonnaroo Music and Arts Festival wil be held June 7-10, 2012 in Manchester, Tennessee. Usually, folks flock to the Bonnarroo webpage to see what the lineup will be for the festival. Then, they’re off to iTunes, YouTube, et al to listen to samples of the acts they don’t know as well.

Not this year. The Bonnaro folks announced their lineup differently for this one.

Be the first to see & hear who’s playing @Bonnaroo 2012 with their announcement playlist – exclusively on @Spotify! spoti.fi/b0nnar00-2012

— Spotify USA (@SpotifyUSA) February 14, 2012

And, sure enough, clicking that link gets you (if you have Spotify installed) a glorious playlist with 81 tracks of Bonnaro artist goodness. Five hours of music by the lineup bands, which include:

February 14, 2012
Facebook And Spotify Reveal Top Songs For Love And Breakups

With Valentine’s Day in mind, Facebook determined which songs are played most by people in the U.S. on Spotify as they change their relationship statuses on Facebook to reflect new relationships and breakups.

“Every day, people are breaking up and entering into relationships on Facebook,” says Facebook data scientist Jonathan Chang. “When they do, they play songs that personify their mood.”

Here’s the top song for those entering a relationship:

And the top song for those breaking up:

Songs people listen to when entering into a relationship:

“Don’t Wanna Go Home” by Jason Derulo
“Love On Top” by Beyoncé
“How to Love” by Lil Wayne
“Just The Way You Are” by Bruno Mars
“Good Feeling” by Flo Rida
“It Girl” by Jason Derulo
“Stereo Hearts” by Gym Class Heroes featuring Adam Levine
“Criminal” by Britney Spears
“No Sleep” by Wiz Khalifa
“Free Fallin’” by John Mayer

Songs listened by people after ending a relationship:

“The Cave” by Mumford and Sons
“Crew Love” by Drake
“All of the Lights” by Kanye West
“Rolling in the Deep” by Adele
“Take Care” by Drake
“It Will Rain” by Bruno Mars
“We Found Love” by Rihanna & Calvin Harris
“Call It What You Want” by Foster the People
“Love You Like a Love Song” by Selena Gomez and the Scene
“Without You” by David Guetta featuring Usher

Chang even made Spotify playlists for these songs. How thoughtful. Here’s the love mix. And the breakup mix.

February 11, 2012
Is Pinterest “Spamming” Facebook?

Pinterest, the virtual pinboard social site, is under light fire again today.

Pinterest Adding Affiliate Links Without Disclosing” target=”_blank”>A few days back, Pinterest drew some fire for their association with SkimLinks and their unannounced practice of converting unaffiliated links to affiliated ones to profit from them. To be fair, while the news surprised some, Pinterest was not really out of line in this matter.

If a pinner had posted a link with their own affiliate ID inside, Pinterest did not strip and replace it, as some sites do. Only in cases of unaffiliated links were the insertions made. And, Pinterest had stated that they could modify content as they saw fit.

The only real complaint that seemed to be had was from retailers who had affiliate programs but who were using Pinterest to drive unaffiliated traffic to their site without realizing that Pinterest was piggy-backing on their efforts. In that case, Pinterest‘s commissions might skew the numbers a bit in terms of effort vs payoff. But, even once factored in, it is unlikely that it would make a retailer stop using Pinterest.

SkimLinks defended its role with Pinterest in the matter and stated that they do encourage their partners to be open and apparent about using their service. In general, the whole tempest in a teapot seems to have settled down. And, Pinterest‘s huge user base was hardly the wiser and couldn’t have cared less.

That was then; this is now. Yesterday, Google Developer Advocate Don Dodge posted to his Google+, Twitter, Facebook and TheNextWeb pages that he was shocked to find that Pinterest was spamming his Facebook friends and himself with follow requests and confirmations. As others piled on, commented, and shared their own stories, the true picture began to emerge. I believe that this “spamming” is less an insidious violation by Pinterest and more an ill-thought-out “feature” of Pinterest. Let me ‘splain.

When I first signed up for Pinterest months ago, via an invitation sent by my wife, I noticed that Pinterest allowed me to sign up using one of four methods:
Email address
Username
Via Facebook
Via Twitter

I chose to go with a user name. To be frank, I don’t like signing into anything via Facebook. I know it’s convenient and all that, but I’ve found that I end up with “features” that I don’t really want.

For example, I love Spotify. I got an invite early on when it first hit the U.S. and I went Premium pretty fast (in fact, it’s playing as I write this). I loved the notion of connecting to other Spotify users, sharing playlists, etc. I connected to Facebook through Spotify and started having a grand old time looking at friends’ playlists.

Then, one evening, a friend texted me:

“Didn’t know if you were aware that everything you are listening to on Spotify is showing up in my Facebook feed. I’m just sayin’…”

I had not known. Didn’t realize that’s one of the things connecting the two would result in. Sure enough, everything I played was rolling through the ticker of all my friends. Fortunately, I wasn’t (currently) listening to any of my favorites from the X-rated catalogs of David Allen Coe, Lords of Acid, or Peaches (sorry, no links. do a youtube search. they’re all there.) But, I disconnected my Facebook/Spotify connection immediately. For a while, you had to specifically tell Spotify every time you logged in to NOT share your music. Then, Spotify fixed that. Now, I only connect occasionally to see what’s up out there, then disconnect to start any listening. I know it goes against the spirit of that sharing thing, like not re-seeding torrents, but that’s just how I roll. What I listen to is my business, not my mother in-law’s.

The point is, when you connect to anything via Facebook, you have to be careful what you wish for. And, one of the consequences of connecting to Pinterest via Facebook is that it automatically connects you to all your Facebook friends who are on Pinterest. Then, as it should, it sends you an email confirming that new connection. The trouble is, these all come at once. Of course, you have the option to go change your email settings in Pinterest to prevent all those emails. But, when most people first sign up, they are on default email settings, which sends you notifications on everything. Only once they start rolling do they tire of the constant emails and find their way to the prefs page to change it.

A comment from Ben (presumably Ben Silbermann) at Pinterest on Don Dodge’s TheNextWeb post confirms this:

Just to clarify, when a person signs up for Pinterest using Facebook, she follows friends who have already joined Pinterest. We notify her friends via email.

We only send emails to people who have already signed up for Pinterest. We also give everyone the option of disconnecting their Facebook account from Pinterest, joining with Twitter, and disabling email notifications. All of these options are found on our user settings page.

Based on the feedback, we’ve made updates to the product and our emails that we hope will clear up any confusion. We really appreciate the feedback.

Ben
co-founder, Pinterest

Moral of the story: Friends, don’t sign up to anything via Facebook. Believe it or not, lots of people out there do not even use Facebook. The world will keep on turning.

February 10, 2012

As a Spotify Premium user, I feel like it’s Christmas!

When Spotify first rolled out, I was excited. I got an invite, downloaded it, and went full-bore with a Premium subscription so I could go mobile.

I use Spotify all the time. I have a grandfathered-in unlimited data plan on AT&T, so I play the thing while driving, all over the house, etc.

People who have Spotify love Spotify. Detractors seem to always mention one thing: It isn’t Pandora.

Of course, what is awesome about Pandora, is that you get to discover new music. You start with something you already like. You listen to recommendations and you tweak as you go (thumbs-up, thumbs-down). Soon, you have a whole station of stuff you like, and you’re discovering new songs in your taste range.

Spotify did not have this. There were third-party sites that kinda-sorta approximated it, but it was certainly not mobile.

Until now.

Spotify recently opened its API for developers. The first to jump into the fray is an app called SpotON. SpotOn combines the Spotify and Echonest APIs for this project. SpotON is for Spotify Premium users and promises to offer you suggestions for new music based on what you are already listening to. Sound familiar?

Guess what has two thumbs and just downloaded SpotOn from the Apple App Store? Let’s fire it up. I should interject here that I will be intentionally testing this out in 3G, not on Wi-Fi. If you’re going to pay for Premium and go mobile, you need to know if this thing is up to the task.

Lately I’ve been playing lots of Cake, Lou Reed and Rush. Don’t ask me why. These things have a life of their own. Right off the bat, SpotON reads this activity and creates 3 “stations” to start me off. I also have the option of creating a new station. Let’s try the Cake station they pre-rolled for me.

After a couple of false starts (likely 3G issues), things are rolling. The Cake station pitched me They Might Be Giants, POTUSA, and Camper Van Beethoven. 90’s stuff. I can see where they are going with this.

The Rush channel, however, hit a snag. I ended up with a recent Pitbull tune, featuring David “Rush”. Hopefully there is more to this than a text string result. Thumbs down for bad result (though I do like the track) and see what’s next.

Spock’s Beard. Now we’re in line with the Rush-esque results I had hoped for.

The Lou Reed channel starts feeding me Iggy Pop.

I like the track and want to “star” it. SpotON offers me the chance to add the track to any existing Spotify Playlist I have previously created or to share on Facebook.

But, there is no choice to simply star it, nor to create a new playlist. That’s a problem for me. I commonly star Spotify tracks for later listening to see if they grow on me. I have my “starred” tracks set to sync offline so I don’t need an Internet connection to play them.

Let’s hope that the absence of starring capability changes soon.

Next offer from this “Lou Reed” channel: David Bowie. Good deal.

Let’s try to create a whole new station.

There’s an option to choose from my own top artists, expanding the list of the first three that what we have already done. Nice.

I can also browse the top 100 artists on Spotify. And, of course, search for something else entirely. Let’s do a search for “Florence + the Machine”.

The artist is found. I click on it to create a station. Similar artists are searched. A Florence tune starts things off: “What the Water Gave Me”. Nice. Let’s thumb it up and see what else we get.

Ah, Bat For Lashes. Makes sense. Thumbs up. Next… PJ Harvey. So far, so good. And then… Lykke Li. I am happy.

The interface looks sweet. No apparent broken stuff. The only things that I feel are missing are the aforementioned inability to “star” tracks and the inability to create new playlists. Other than that, looks like we have a winner.

I’m looking forward to seeing updates on this app and also seeing others take advantage of the Spotify API.