Spotify adds third-party app developers to its playlist

Music streaming service Spotify has opened up its platform to third-party app developers.

“Today Spotify becomes a musical platform,” the company’s chief executive and co-founder Daniel Ek said at a New York press conference.

The Swedish-founded company says it already has 16 partner apps, with 12 available from launch.

According to the company, its app partners include the likes of “Billboard, Fuse, The Guardian, Last.fm, Moodagent, Pitchfork, Rolling Stone, Songkick, Soundrop, TuneWiki and We Are Hunted, with Top10 and ShareMyPlaylists apps coming soon”.

According to Spotify, these partnerships mean that people will be able to “enjoy great music reviews, buy tickets for gigs, and sing along with the lyrics, all inside Spotify”.

Spotify continues to report substantial growth. A large proportion of this growth, however, is down to its integration with Facebook earlier this year.

Confirmed at the same time as Facebook announced its timeline feature, the integration is part of the OpenGraph element launched during the social newtworking giant’s F8 developers’ conference. Essentially, it allows Facebook users to listen to their friends’ music while browsing their newsfeeds.

Since the integration, Spotify claims to have added “more than seven-million new Spotify users in just over two months”.

Its users, it adds, “have now created more than 500 million playlists, a number which has doubled since just July”.

The company, which now based in the UK, says it has high hopes for the platform.

“We want DJs to create the best lists, and virtual clubs where people can gather together to hear them, dance, and sing along. We want fans to get closer to their favourite artists, and give great editorial partners and tastemakers a way to recommend music to you.”

“Once you take a look, you’ll see why we believe this is truly the beginning of something game-changing for digital music. We think this will lead to integrations that keep Spotify beautiful and simple, but layer in great musical experiences designed to be social and fun. It’s what our users have been asking us for,” said Ek.

The service also claims that people can curate the apps on the platform according to their own needs.

Since its 2006 launch, the company has rapidly risen to international prominence. Its revenue is based on subscriptions and advertising.

In addition to the streaming music service, Spotify users can also download tracks much as they can on the iTunes store.

The service has also been available as a mobile app on the Android and iOS platforms since 2009.