Technology : Spotify
I am expanding the Nollywood blogs to include this great music application which has take the music tech by storm!
Called Spotify
Website: www.spotify.com
Spotify is a proprietary peer-to-peer[1] streaming music program that allows instant listening to specific tracks or albums with almost no buffering delay.[2][3] Music can be browsed by artists, albums or created playlists as well as by direct searches.
Here am going to comply a list of Hints & Tips of using the best out of spotify app.
Firstly you must download the software to the latest one from the site above.
There are three options to listen to the tunes by
Advertising played periodically by the Spotify player at intervals in between songs.
Day pass: No advertising. Just you and your favourite music for the day.
Premium pass: premium members get unlimited music access without advertising.
Ok you get the idea!
Now, am a big fan of spotify and I share most good info to my family & friends about useful tech stuff.
This got me hooked and now am sharing this with you all. Go for it !!!
When you start using the player you want to get the best out of the player for max enjoyment.
Here are some tips.
Spotify feature, creating and sharing play-lists
A short tutorial how to use the player.
Spotify mobile demo at Google Android I/O
This one is still in concept mode for mobile phone ,but fantastic app for andriod phone.
And this one is a killer app for G2 phones a must download!
Hints & Tips – Drop down arrows
With the ever increasing track uploads .You’ll usually find them in two places; either when searching for tracks or in the artists view. When searching for music we combine different versions of the same track name and display the most popular one. If you’re looking for a different version you can click the drop down arrow to the right of the track name to reveal all the versions available.
then >>>>
There are also drop down arrows next to some album names. If an album has a censored version or a radio edit we combine them and add the drop down arrow.
Clicking it will show all versions of that album that we have.
That’s it !!!
Searching Spotify
One of the core features of Spotify is searching. You just type the name of an artist or a song into the search bar and off you go. Normally that’s all you need to get the Spotify experience: you know, when you think of some music and literally seconds later you’re listening to it.
There are cases, though, when you need to refine your queries. Perhaps you don’t want to search for “madonna“, because you’re not looking for the artist Madonna, but rather songs whose titles include the word “madonna”. Then you can search for “title:madonna“.
Similarly, you can search for “album:madonna” and “artist:madonna” to find only matching albums and artists, respectively.
To further refine your searches (or to indulge in some nostalgia or browse through a new musical genre), you can search for a year, a range of years or a genre: “year:1969“, “year:1994-1996” or “genre:soul“.
Logically, you can use combinations to search for techno from the early 90s or Grateful Dead songs from the late 60s: “genre:techno year:1990-1995” or “artist:”grateful dead” year:1965-1970“. In the latter example, you see how you can use quotes to control to what parts of the search string a keyword applies.
Hints & Tips – Your top list
Ever curious to see what track or artist you’ve recently been listening to the most? We’ve got a top list feature built-in which shows you what you’re currently digging. You can view your top ten tracks, albums and artists as well as the top hits in various different countries.
To see the top lists head to the Home page, then click on the Top lists tab. There you will see drop down menus where you can select various different views.
Hints & Tips – History tab
Today’s tip might help if you’ve been listening to a new playlist on random and aren’t sure what the last song was or an ad played and you didn’t open Spotify fast enough to click the banner. We have a history tab in Spotify that allows you to see a listing of everything that you’ve listened to in a current session.
To see the history of your current session head to the Play queue page, then click on the History tab. There you will see all the tracks and ads that have played since you last started Spotify and you can click on any of them to play over again.
I need to try this feature – enjoy !
Hints & Tips – Link to a specific track time
Here’s a little feature that you may not know about. You can link directly to a specific time in a track by adding, for example “#1:31″ to the end of a URI, where 1:31 is the time you want to link to. Just a note that this feature only works with Spotify URIs, HTTP links do not support it.
Here’s a full example, spotify:track:2QO8cnnFW6khDuAuUAySeV#3:04 will link to what I think is the best part of this song.
So if you’ve ever wanted to send your friend a track so he could hear only the great guitar riff or fabulous chorus, now you can.
Update: As I’ve mentioned earlier, you learn something new every day. A user points out in the comments that this feature does work with HTTP links if you use “%23″ in place of the “#” symbol. So my example would look like this:http://open.spotify.com/track/2QO8cnnFW6khDuAuUAySeV%233:04. Thanks for the tip
This is a cool feature..go for it !!
Chris Anderson’s Free, the first audiobook on Spotify
Wired Editor Chris Anderson has had a great influence on Spotify. His first book, The Long Tail, has been required reading in our office since day one and today we’re extremely excited to be working with him to bring another first to Spotify.
Starting today Chris’ new book, Free: The Future of a Radical Price, will be made available to all UK users.
Personally narrated by Anderson, Free considers a brave new world where the old economic certainties are being challenged by a growing flood of free goods – newspapers, DVDs, T-shirts, phones, even holiday flights. The audiobook supports today’s hardback launch of Free, published by Random House.
This is the first audiobook we’ve ever included in our catalogue. We’re going to trial it, see what people think and who knows, maybe this is the start of something new for us…
Hints & Tips – History tab
Today’s tip might help if you’ve been listening to a new playlist on random and aren’t sure what the last song was or an ad played and you didn’t open Spotify fast enough to click the banner. We have a history tab in Spotify that allows you to see a listing of everything that you’ve listened to in a current session.
To see the history of your current session head to the Play queue page, then click on the History tab. There you will see all the tracks and ads that have played since you last started Spotify and you can click on any of them to play over again.
Twitter on Spotify
Yes the spotify team have finally done it after popular demand to this feature: share via twitter !
When we introduced the sharing feature, a lot of you requested a simple way of sharing the music you are listening to on Twitter. With Spotify 0.3.19, you can.
Spotify goes offline
No, we’re not turning off the music – we’re extending the popular ‘offline mode’ that is available on Spotify Mobile and bringing it to your computer!
Starting today, Spotify Premium subscribers will be able to select their playlists and set them to be ‘Available offline’. Those playlists will then be synced to your computer so you can continue to listen to your favorite tunes if you have a slow connection or even if you have no connection at all. Each computer will be able to store up to 3,333 tracks at a time.
To use ‘offline mode’ you’ll need to be running the latest version of Spotify and you may have to log out and back in for the feature to kick in.
So don’t let the lack an internet connection stop you from listening to Spotify – upgrade to Spotify Premium today and sync your music.
Purchasing music just got easier
A few months back we introduced the ability to purchase high quality MP3 tracks directly through Spotify. You may not have known that you could purchase tracks, admittedly the feature was a bit hard to use and required you to right click on tracks/albums that you wanted to buy.
All that changes today as we release our improved ‘Purchases‘ features which allows you to buy your favorite tracks or albums directly in Spotify with only a few clicks.
Purchases will be downloaded onto your computer, placed into your default music folder and can be easily accessed via Spotify or any other program. All the MP3s you purchase are yours to own and can be transferred to any MP3 device of your choosing or burnt to a CD. Have a look at the short demo we put together for more details.
So, if you love to ‘try before you buy’ then hopefully this feature will make your life just a little easier.
1. Search modifiers
Search Spotify using modifiers to restrict and refine your results. For example, to search for Madonna’s 1983 output you enter “madonna year:1982″. You can also search for a range of years, like this: “rolling stones year:1965-1972″. Other modifiers include “album”, “artist” and “genre”. These can be combined, for example: “album:love artist:cult” only finds tracks from The Cult’s “Love”. Finally, Boolean syntax can be used to exclude keywords, like this: “genre:trip-hop NOT morcheeba”.
EXCLUSIVE TRACKS: Filter bands and tracks out of search results with the Boolean NOT operator – or use the minus sign “-”.
2. Search by genre
Spotify’s most useful search modifiers is “genre”. Search for “genre:post-rock” and you’ll get more Mogwai than you can get wet after midnight. It’s also the trickiest to use. The program itself only lists 18 default genres (in the Radio section), but it supports around 800! If you don’t use the right wording, the search will return no results. For a full and current list of Spotify genres, go to Spotify Gateway.
3. Multiple versions
Many albums exist in multiple versions with different edits – and Spotify may have multiple listings for the same collection of tracks. When this happens you’ll see a little arrow in the “Track” column of your results. Click it to see all the instances of that track appearing on a different version of the album.
MULTITRACK: Different edits of your favourite albums have different track versions. Spotify finds them, but hides them
4. Link to part of a track
As originally cited on the Spotify blog, you can send friends a track URI with a time index embedded in it. Copy the Spotify URI and paste it into your email or message window, then edit the URI to add ‘#time’ to the end. For example, if the track has a brilliant solo at 1:26, you append #1:26 to the end of the URI. You can also do this with HTTP links, but you’ll have to replace the hash tag “#” with “%23″.
5. Draggable URLs
You probably already know that you can right click on Spotify playlists, tracks and albums to copy the HTTP link or Spotify URI to the clipboard. You can also drag and drop any Spotify link to the text box of another program; an email client, instant messager, URL shortener or Twitter window. The HTTP link is embedded – not the Spotify URI.
6. Top Lists
The often forgotten “Top Lists” feature shows you the most popular tracks everywhere on the Spotify network, by default. You can change the display to show top artists, albums and tracks. If you look in the top left corner – you can also change where Spotify gets its data. Choose “Everywhere”, the United Kingdom or another region where Spotify is live. Finally, choosing “For Me” shows your most frequently played tracks since the list was last updated. This should happen once a week – but the feature is notoriously buggy.
TOP OF YOUR POPS: Spotify say that its lists of top tracks, albums and artists are refreshed once a week, so don’t worry if your currents faves aren’t at number one
7. Quicker playlist creation
Introducing Spotify Open and Unlimited
A few weeks back we released the next generation of Spotify and today we’re excited to offer you even more ways to get the most out of Spotify with the introduction of Spotify Open and Spotify Unlimited.
First up is Spotify Unlimited, which offers you round-the-clock, ad-free access to Spotify on your computer. Create playlists, build your own library, share music with friends – and all for only €5 a month.
Also available from today is Spotify Open. Open offers new Spotify users the chance to try out the service without the need for an invite, giving access to millions of tracks for up to 20 hours every month – that’s equivalent to listening to 25 albums or 300 tracks EVERY month!
So if you’ve got friends who haven’t managed to get an invite but have been dying to get on Spotify, let them know about Spotify Open.
We’re really excited to offer more choices for users and existing users who are happy with their current plan won’t be affected by these updates.
To view a full comparison of all the products that we now offer head over to the products overview page.