Spotify pursues developers with expanded web API

Spotify has announced an expanded web API to give third parties access to Spotify and The Echo Nest for their own audiences.

Developers, marketers and designers are among those invited to build apps that integrate Spotify and The Echo Nest’s music streaming and discovery data.

Spotify acquired The Echo Nest, the top music personalisation and discovery API, for US$100 million in March. When discussing the buy, CEO Daniel Ek told Techcrunch he hoped to enable straight playback from Spotify on other services.

The new web API could see Spotify benefit music licensing issues for developers, letting their users play full songs wherever they come across it.

Speaking to TMN today, Jim Butcher, Spotify’s Communications Director (APAC) said: “We want music enjoyment to be as frictionless as possible and accessible to all. The new version of the Spotify API is the latest step in this journey.”

The upgrade is the biggest update to Spotify’s three-year-old web version. Third parties now have access to track, album bios, cover art and 30-second track previews from Spotify’s catalogue, users’ profile information if that user grants access and discovery and recommendation features using The Echo Nest’s integration.

With more than 40 million active users, over 10 million paying subscribers and this new set of API’s. Spotify has positioned itself as a worthy competitor to the tech giants eyeing paid tiers of their services – we’re looking at you YouTube (Google), Amazon and Apple. If media whispers are correct in thinking Spotify has its sights on an IPO, investors can only have a few more reasons to express interest.