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Sonos adds Spotify Radio support to its Android beta
Sonos owners are able to stream from an impressive collection of services using the company's Controller app. If you've been listening to Spotify on any of Sonos' speakers, you've likely noticed the streaming service's Radio feature isn't available. Well, that's about to change. Starting today, the Sonos Android beta will include Spotify's internet radio stream. Thanks to new tools for streaming services in the pending software update, companies like Spotify are able to add more features to enhance the in-home listening experience. In addition to adding radio, the beta also includes tweaks that make Spotify integration with Sonos more stable, so that when lots of users are streaming songs, quality won't suffer like it did during the holidays. If you're not willing to give the beta version a try, the update is scheduled to arrive for everyone later this summer.
Spotify just bought the company that powers most online radio (update)
Spotify now owns The Echo Nest, better known as "the company that powers the vast majority of internet radio." That includes competing services like Twitter #Music, Rdio and more. But today's news doesn't necessarily mean that those services will lose support from Echo Nest's API, as Spotify's news announce today says, "The Echo Nest API will remain free and open to support its robust developer ecosystem." The Echo Nest is staying in Somerville, Mass., with employees assuredly making Revolutionary War jokes every now and again to their Spotify counterparts in England. It's not clear just yet what this will mean for Spotify Radio, but there's this one oblique line about the acquisition's potential impact: "The addition of The Echo Nest to Spotify will also strengthen Spotify's ability to help brands and partners build amazing music experiences for their audiences." Sure! Anyway, Spotify now owns the company that powers most of your internet radio. Take that as you will. Update: A Spotify rep gave us a few more details on the acquisition. First, Echo Nest is a "wholly owned subsidiary" of Spotify, and will operate relatively autonomously as such. Second, it looks like relationships with the competition may not last forever. "In the few cases where The Echo Nest does work with direct competitors we will work with them to understand these relationships and determine the next business steps. The Echo Nest will meet all contractual obligations to all customers," we were told.
Spotify Radio gets thumbs up, thumbs down on desktop
Pretty much from day one, the mobile Spotify Radio feature outclassed its desktop counterpart, thanks to the presence of one feature -- thumbs up and thumbs down buttons. The ability to more finely tailor the music selection to your tastes is a pretty essential feature for any automatically generated playlist. Finally, Spotify is bringing the buttons to the Mac and Windows clients in an update rolling out today. Your likes and dislikes are synced across platforms and, best of all, the update finally lets you view radio stations you've created through the mobile app on your desktop.
Spotify brings radio feature to iOS, offers streaming to non-premium users
Swedish music streamer extraordinaire Spotify is updating its iOS app this morning with a key new feature. Radio, introduced late last year for the desktop version of the service, is making its way onto iPads and iPhones in the States for both premium and free users. As with its desktop counterpart, users can generate an unlimited number of Pandora / Slacker-like radio stations using artists, albums, songs and Spotify playlists. The social functionality that Spotify loves so much is intact as well, with both songs and radio stations appearing in friends' Facebook streams. And since the radio feature is available across Spotify's pages, you can make stations based on friends' playlists -- or you can just pick "Create a New Station" from the top of the Radio tab. You can thumb up or thumb down tracks, with songs you dig populating a "Like From Radio" playlist, making those tracks accessible on different devices. Inter-device functionality also means that you can start a radio station on, say, your iPad and pick up where you left off by firing it up on your iPhone. Premium users get an unlimited number of song skips -- when asked how many skips free users get, Spotify simply told us that it would be "industry standard" (ie, the same number you get on competing services). Asked when such functionality will be hitting Android handsets, the company told us, "we think it's core to the mobile experience, and we're looking to bring it to all of the major platforms in due time." In the meantime, iPhone and iPad owners can download the update today. Update: Spotify dropped us a line to let us know that the update apparently isn't quite ready for prime time. Rather than actually dropping today, the latest version of the iOS app "will be available in the next few days."
Echo Nest is the man behind the Spotify Radio curtain
The Music Genome Project is in some serious trouble. The fancy algorithm behind Pandora is facing an increasingly popular competitor in the form of Echo Nest. The company's "music intelligence platform" and its accompanying API are already powering iHeartRadio and Nokia Music's Mix Radio. Now it's getting baked into the streaming media service du jour -- Spotify. Echo Nest's capable automated mix-making was already available to Spotify users via Echofi, but now the Swedish media company is using the tech as the basis for its updated radio service. Check out the PR after the break for a few not-so-subtle jabs at Pandora and its restrictions on free users.
Spotify Radio feature turns into an app, offers Pandora-like stations with unlimited skips
While Spotify has had little trouble cranking up its subscriber base so far, one feature that has notably been lacking is its radio / auto playlist feature. Today (tied in with an appearance by CEO Daniel Ek at LeWeb 2011) that's been upgraded, as the freshest preview builds move the Radio section down among the new Spotify Apps, where it now lets you drop in any song from your library for it to automatically create a radio station of similar music around. Subscribers not interested in upgrading yet can find similar functionality tied to Spotify's library with the EchoFi tool, but this venture represents the service's debut of an "all-new intelligent recommendation engine" meant to dig the tracks you want out of its millions-deep library. Advertising "unlimited skips" is a clear jab at Pandora, but it's not immediately clear if you'll still need a premium paid-up account for truly unlimited listening (well, maybe not). Hit the source link to grab a Radio-enabled preview build and see if some algorithm can defeat even the mightiest Yacht Rock playlist crafted by our own Brian Heater.
