The music streaming wars have been heating up a good deal, as of late, thanks in no small part Spotify's
long-awaited US launch. Since then, Rhapsody
bought its one-time chief competitor Napster, both
Pandora and
Rdio underwent major redesigns and Mog finally launched a
Windows client. Naturally, all of this has proven good news for the consumer, as services have a features arms race of sorts, gunning for the top spot. None of the contenders are quite perfect, of course -- when Spotify launched, for example, we couldn't help but note the absence of a browser-based option of the sort employed by Rdio and Pandora. Today's announcement still leaves open that possibility, but it does mark a new web-focused strategy for the company -- on that could arguably have a much larger impact on Spotify's fortunes than a simple browser-based UI.
Today marks the launch of the Spotify Play Button -- a name we assume the Swedish company settled on before Google announced the whole Android Market
rebranding thing. The button is, essentially, a widget that allows site owners to embed songs and playlists directly from Spotify's massive catalog of songs. It's a simple idea, sure, but well executed, it could prove a major win in the service's attempt to stand out in the ever-more competitive world of music streaming. After all, embedding music on sites has long been a fairly haphazard deal -- unless you happen to have a deal with a proprietary player, it means snapping up something like a YouTube video, which often live in, at best, a legal gray area.
Continue reading Spotify launches Play Button in bid to become the web's default music player
Spotify launches Play Button in bid to become the web's default music player originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 11 Apr 2012 06:00:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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