- So you can't customize radio stations, and you can't delete radio stations. These are 2 very simple things that Pandora has over Spotify. I'm trying out the paid version of Spotify and I don't understand why anyone would pay $10 per month for something lacking such basic features.
- Spotify features: Free streaming on mobile or tablet. Find music, play songs, stream albums and hits from all of your favourite artists. Listen to free music with the song downloader and music player to create your own playlist. Play music and turn on shuffle mode for a fun experience. Stream radio stations and play music from all.
- Stationhead transforms the traditional radio model. Any host can stream a radio show, feature 45M+ songs and create an engaging audio experience with their fans.
Keep the mood going. Spotify Radio creates a collection of songs based on any artist, album, playlist, or song of your choice. It even updates over time to keep fresh. Go to any artist, album, playlist, or song. Select Go to radio. You can also Search to find an Artist Radio.
Spotify on Wednesday expanded the free tier of its service to all devices, including smartphones and tablets.
In the past, free Spotify users could only access Spotify Radio on mobile devices and tablets, but like other radio services, this prevented them from listening to a specific artist or music in their own playlists. The new offering expands on-demand listening to free users on tablets, and allows smartphone users to listen to their own playlists or music from a specific artist in shuffle mode.
Spotify mobile app no internet connection available. See also: Spotify Expands Free Streaming to All Devices
Spotify created the following chart, which shows the access options that users have:
When it comes to specifics on how everything works, it becomes a bit more complicated. Fortunately, Mashable spoke with Charlie Hellman, Spotify's vice president of product, who broke down the company's new mobile offering.
Can Free Users Listen to Any Song They Want on Mobile and Tablet?
You can listen to any song you want, and in any order, if you use Spotify on a tablet. On iOS, this means the iPad or iPad mini. On Android, Spotify is setting 7-inches in diagonal as the screen minimum for tablets. The app will determine which version of the experience you see in Android.
On the tablet, the play-on-demand feature works the same as it does on desktop. You will have ads every five to six songs, and you can't save playlists for offline listening. Spotify decided to treat the tablet as a desktop after observing how people use the product.
In a post-PC world, the tablet is increasingly becoming the main home computer for many consumers, including Spotify users; for that reason, the company chose to make the experience on-par with what you'd get on the desktop.
On smartphones, only Spotify Premium users have the option to listen to specific songs on-demand.
How Does Free Listening on Mobile Work?
Although Spotify doesn't offer free on-demand listening via mobile, it has substantially expanded the types of music you can listen to, and how you can listen to them.
You can now listen to music from any artist in 'shuffle' mode; this means you can search for an artist, then instantly listen to a station that only features that particular artist. It's a big switch from typical online radio services, such as Pandora and iTunes Radio, which may let you create a station around an artist, but wind up having other artists in the mix, too.
What's more, you can listen to your own Spotify playlists in shuffle mode. Be aware, however, that there are a few rules about how they work.
Spotify Stations App
What Are the Rules for Free Shuffle Mode?
Your playlists will need to meet several parameters to work in free shuffle mode. (Don't worry, Spotify will automatically fill out your playlist if it doesn't meet these requirements.)
They include:
- A playlist must have at least 20 songs
- A playlist must consist of at least three albums
- Even if you list the same track 20 times in a row, it still only counts as one
Spotify said the vast majority of playlists have more than 20 songs, and include many different artists. Although this means you can't listen exclusively to a shuffled mix of Daft Punk's Random Access Memories, you can listen to Rolling Stone's playlist for its top 100 tracks of 2013.
Plus, as long as you add a few songs from other albums to your Random Access Memories playlist, you'll be guaranteed to hear the whole album during your listening session.
How Is This Better Than Pandora, Songza or iTunes Radio?
The biggest change is that you can choose to only listen to a specific artist — something the other services don't offer. What's more, you can listen to playlists you create.
Songza is a playlist-oriented Internet radio product, but its licensing rules mean that users can't listen to playlists they create themselves.
This is also true for other streaming services that offer access to curated playlists. Usually, it's fine, especially when users are passively listening to tunes. Where it becomes problematic is if you've collected a bunch of tracks for an event, such as a holiday party. What's the point of having the ultimate holiday playlist if you can't even play it back on your own device?
Can Free Users Create Playlists on Mobile?
Yes. Free users can create their own playlists or add songs to existing playlists in the app; this means if you want to add a track from Spotify Discover to an existing playlist, you can do so without having to worry. You can also create new playlists with music or artists you come across.
How Do Ads Work on Mobile and Tablet?
Just as they do on the desktop and within Spotify Radio now. Interruptions and ads will come every five to six songs.
Should I Bother Paying for Spotify Premium?
This will totally depend on how you listen to music. If you mostly listen to playlists while on your phone, and avoid selecting albums and tracks, you may not feel the need to pay for Spotify Premium. What's more, if you use an iPad or Android tablet for most of your listening, you no longer need to pay to play any song you want.
Still, Spotify Premium continues to have advantages. On the smartphone side, the biggest advantage is that you don't have to deal with ads, and you can save music for offline listening; this is really useful when on an airplane or the subway. Spotify Premium users can also stream audio in higher quality, so if you're an audiophile (at least in the context of streaming music), you get higher fidelity sound.
Spotify told Mashable that getting rid of ads and offline playback are actually the two biggest reasons users upgrade to Spotify Premium. The goal of the new Spotify freemium offering is to encourage users to listen to as much music as possible.
'We've found that the more stuff we give users, the more users are willing to pay us,' Hellman said. It's a good point. I know I have personally found that the value in subscription music services really shows itself the more I use it. Having more mobile listeners gives Spotify a chance to convert more of those listeners into Premium subscribers.
How Do I Get Started Using the Free Mobile Offering?
Make sure you are running the latest version of Spotify for iOS or Android, and the option is available now. For free users, browsing artists or accessing your playlists will show an option to 'Shuffle Play.'
On Android tablets and the iPad, you now have the ability to listen to any track you want at will.
Images: Spotify
In this piece, Seth Reslar explores how the Spotify's new podcast creation feature can be taken a step further to create a Spotify-based radio show by combining the podcast and song saving feature into one.
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Guest post by Seth Resler of Jacobs Media Strategy
From time to time, I discover a way to do something that I don't immediately understand the practical use for. In that spirit, here's a tutorial for something that no radio station may actually want to do…
Spotify has recently introduced the ability for users to add specific podcast episodes to playlists. This means that in addition to letting users create a collection of their favorite songs, they can now also do the same with podcast episodes. They could even mix the two.
This raises an interesting possibility: Anybody can now create their own radio show by combining episodes of their own podcast with songs on a Spotify playlist if that podcast is broken into “DJ breaks” that are designed to be used in between tunes.
Until now, this has been a challenge. There are nearly insurmountable hurdles to using popular music in podcasts (though PodcastMusic.com hopes to change that next year). But now, it's possible for the average joe to play DJ with actual songs. Here's how you can do it:
1. Create a podcast with a single destination: Spotify.
Normally, when you create a podcast, you take the RSS feed from your hosting company and submit it to as many directories as possible: Apple Podcasts, iHeartRadio, Stitcher, TuneIn, etc. In this case, however, we're going to create a podcast with only one destination: Spotify.
2. Upload each “DJ break” as an episode.
Record a series of short “breaks” — introductions to each song on the playlist — as separate audio files. Upload them to your hosting service.
3. Create a playlist in Spotify and add your songs.
In Spotify, go to “Your Library” and click “Create Playlist.” Name your playlist. You can even add artwork and a description to your playlist. (I found this easier to do using Spotify's desktop app.)
4. Add your podcast episodes to the playlist.
Click on the “Search” button and search for your podcast. Click on the three dots next to each episode, then add each of the episodes to your playlist.
5. Sort your playlist.
Click on “Your Library” and then click on your playlist again. Click the three dots at the top of the screen and select “Edit Playlist.” (Oddly, you don't want to sort your playlist by clicking “Sort Playlist.”) You can change the order of the songs by grabbing them by the three lines and dragging them into the order you want.
6. Make your playlist public.
Return to your playlist, click the three dots in the top right corner, and click “Make Public.” Now, anybody with Spotify can access your playlist.
Spotify Free Create Stationery
7. Redirect with a vanity URL.
Find and copy the link to your playlist. In the Spotify mobile app, you click the three dots in the top corner of the screen, click “Share Playlist,” then click “Copy Link.”
Register a memorable domain name (I used “detroitplaylist.com”) or use a sub-directory of your existing website (such as “wkrp.com/localmusicshow”). Redirect this URL to the Spotify playlist link that you copied.
Now, you've got a convenient link that can be shared and promoted. For example, I have created a Spotify playlist at http://detroitplaylist.com.
You can imagine updating this playlist on a daily, weekly, or monthly basis to create new “radio” shows.
Complications
Spotify music converter full mac. The ability to create playlists this way relies on some newly unveiled Spotify features, and is not using them in the exact way that they were intended, so it doesn't work perfectly. Here are some of the challenges I ran into:
- The process is slightly different depending on whether you're using the desktop version of Spotify or the mobile app. In some cases, I had difficulty figuring out how to do every step of this on one device or the other, and had to rely on a combination of the two. That may change over time.
- The playlist doesn't sync instantaneously between the desktop and the mobile app. Sometimes, I would make a change in one and not see it reflected in the other, which is problematic when you're relying on both to get the job done.
- While the desktop version of the app shows a big green “Play” button, the mobile app version's primary call to action is a “Shuffle Play” button. Of course, if people shuffle the songs, the DJ breaks will lead into the wrong songs, defeating the purpose of the playlist.
Ok, but who would do this?
This is a neat trick, but in reality, who's actually going to do this? I can see cases where an out-of-work DJ does it to stay on top of their game, or somebody looking to break into the industry does it as a resumé showpiece. A DJ with a specialty show, such as a new music show or a local music show, might want to do it. An air personality who is known for their in-depth musical knowledge may also want to do it. Or, you could create “pop-up playlists” for special occasions, such as Lollapalooza or the Grammys or the death of a big artist.
Spotify android app history. Of course, most radio stations will understandably be reluctant to promote this type of playlist, because if people are listening to Spotify, they're not listening to the radio station. I get it, and that's why I don't know what the practical use is for this feature. But it exists, and I thought you would want to see it.
Seth Resler: Digital Dot Connector at Jacobs Media Strategies
Spotify Stations Desktop
Seth Resler is a 20-year broadcasting veteran who has worked behind both the mic and the programming desk in major markets, including New York City, Boston, Seattle, St. Louis, Providence, and San Jose. He left radio in 2006 to enter the world of online marketing. But he kept returning to the broadcasting industry, teaching radio stations how to apply the online marketing techniques being used by Silicon Valley companies. He writes a weekly column on AllAccess.com, offering internet strategies for radio broadcasters. In 2015, Seth joined us as our Digital Dot Connector, helping radio stations combine all of their digital tools into one overarching strategy.