It’s fair to say that Facebook has revolutionized the concept of how a social network can leverage third-party apps to transform itself into a platform. In fact, I strongly believe that apps have played a crucial role in establishing Facebook as the world’s leading social network. It’s no surprise that other social networks such as Google+ are leveraging the concept of apps to bring games and enterprise apps to users.
However, cloud-based music services are a totally different ball game. It’s a keenly contested segment with biggies such as Google, Amazon, Apple and several niche startups such as Spotify contesting for supremacy. Smaller players such as Spotify realize that it’s not easy to compete with the biggies and hence they aren’t afraid to innovate in and try unconventional techniques to carve a niche for themselves.
To that effect, Spotify recently announced that it will add free Facebook-style apps to its streaming music service, partnering with Rolling Stone, pitchfork, Last.fm, Songkick, Billboard and CBS Corp.’s music-recommendation service. The idea is to transform from being a music app to a larger ecosystem to support broader interests including you would ever want to read, see, do or share around the music that fills your days.
Why?
The obvious question to ask – why is Spotify heading into unchartered territories? For a start, Spotify wants to attract developers to its API so they can help add new functions and features. From a customer perspective, it’s a win-win situation as they get access to several state of the art apps. Typical examples include a TuneWiki app that lets users read lyrics while listening to songs, while a Rolling Stone app brings playlists and articles into Spotify. A Billboard app turns the publisher’s “top 100″ charts into playlists.
Spotify says this move will help differentiate itself from the growing competition from Google, Apple and Amazon.
Monetization
All apps will be free for paid as well as free Spotify users. At the moment, Spotify doesn’t plan to monetize its app platform. However, there’s a bigger interest at stake – improve Spotify without having to do the work itself. Instead, third-party developers add new features that keep current users happy. I’m sure it’s a matter of time before Spotify works out a revenue sharing agreement with developers.
All in all, an interesting move by Spotify to evolve from an app into a platform. Will it help Spotify compete with the big boys such as Apple, Google and Amazon? Time will tell. What do you think? Please share your opinion by leaving a comment.
