SoundShare + Spotify
I’m thrilled to say that SoundShare's version 2.7 fully integrates with Spotify, bringing pretty much everything from Spotify to SoundShare’s users. But it also goes a lot further. It allows Spotify users to interact with Apple Music users as well as users on Deezer, Youtube, iTunes and SoundCloud.
SoundShare
SoundShare is a full featured social music network. It allows you to see and play what your friends are listening to, like their songs, add a comment, tag friends, build regular and collaborative playlists and much more.
Connecting SoundShare to Spotify
When you connect SoundShare to Spotify, any song you hit play will be played from Spotify, and any song you search will be searched using Spotify's API, but all without ever leaving SoundShare. This means that you can play any song from your friends’ playlist, from your feed, the top charts, featured playlists and any other place inside the app and it will just work (assuming of course the song is available on Spotify).
Sharing a Song
SoundShare makes sharing extremely easy. You just need to listen to a song for over 30 seconds and that song will be automatically shared with all your followers. If you don’t want everyone to see what you are listening to, you can just enable the privacy toggle and you are good to go. Only followers that you approve will be able to see the songs you share.
UI Changes
When you connect SoundShare with Spotify, part of the app's UI will change to accommodate some of Spotify’s features.
Explore Tab
The Explore tab will show the Spotify button right at the top. When you tap it, you will have access to all Spotify Featured playlists, Genres & Moods and Top Charts. All of them are region and time based. They are constantly updated and come directly from Spotify itself.
Search Tab
The Search tab is also updated when connected to Spotify. At the top it will show you all the New Releases that are relevant to your account and in the center it will show you all the Genres & Moods. Just like the content from the Explore tab, all these content are region and time based. They are also constantly updated and come directly from Spotify itself.
Spotify Playlists
When you connect with Spotify, all your Spotify playlists will also become available right inside your profile page, under playlists. Those will be available to you and all your followers (if they are public) who are also connected to Spotify. But if you share them or add them to your SoundShare’s playlists, all your other followers (who are not necessarily connected to Spotify) will be able o see it, play it, like it, leave a comment and a lot more, which is pretty cool.
Manage your Spotify Playlists
You can manage all your Spotify playlists from right inside SoundShare. Which means you can add to them any song you want or remove any other you don't.
To add a song, just tap on the Add to Playlist button bellow any song and choose a playlist from Spotify.
To remove a song, go to the Spotify Playlist inside SoundShare you want to remove the song from, and swipe it from the right to the left. Then, just tap remove.
Like any Spotify Playlist
One of the many features SoundShare has is the option to like any playlist you see. When you do, they will be easily accessible inside your Profile under Playlists > Liked Playlists. Those are only available to you, so you don't need to worry about your followers seeing the playlists you like. But this feature also extends to any playlist on Spotify. Which means that if you see a Spotify playlist you like from your friends or inside the Explore tab, you can simply tap the heart button to like it and easily access them later.
Radios
Spotify offers to all its users the ability to create radios based on a song, artist and album. This feature is also present on SoundShare and it's pretty easy to access. Simply tap on the radio button inside any song, album or artist's detail page and SoundShare will start playing it for you.
Cross Platform Collaborative Playlists
It’s amazing how powerful this is, and how much better playlists we are able to build together with our friends.
As you may have seen in the “Connecting SoundShare to Spotify” section, there were also options to connect SoundShare to Apple Music and Deezer. This means that with SoundShare you don’t need to stay “stuck” with only users that are on the same streaming service that you are.
It means that with SoundShare any user can interact with users from other services, like Apple Music and Deezer. Yep, that’s right! With SoundShare a user from Spotify can build collaborative playlists with friends who are using Spotify, Deezer or neither service.
When I say neither service is because if you don’t connect SoundShare with any streaming music service it will still work. SoundShare in this case will use Youtube to play all the songs, and you will even be able to watch the full video clip. It’s pretty awesome.
To make it work you need to create a playlist inside SoundShare, not Spotify. Why? Because it’s SoundShare which is actually connecting everyone together. But don’t you worry, you will be able to play them using Spotify anytime you want!
After creating your playlist, you can add your friends to it by tapping on the + button inside it. To be able to add a friend you must be following them and they must be following you back. When you add someone, you grant them access to add, remove, rename and reorder your playlist. The only thing they can’t do is add other friends. Only the owner of the playlist can do this.
The best part is that you don't need to worry about which music service your friends are using. As long as they are using SoundShare, you can all interact with each other and of course, build collaborative playlists together.
The UI/UX of SoundShare's collaborative playlists will always be the same, no matter which music service the user is using. The difference is when tapping the play button. SoundShare will use the appropriate music source to play the songs for you. For example, if you connect it with Spotify, SoundShare will use Spotify's APIs to play those songs. If you connect with Apple Music, SoundShare will use Apple Music's APIs instead to play them. The same works for every other service.
One more thing
As said in the beginning, SoundShare is a full featured Social Network, that allows you to see and play what your friends are listening to, like their songs, add a comment, tag friends and much more.
When connected to Spotify, or any other music service, everything will still work as normal. Sharing a song, playing it, liking it, adding a comment or mentioning a friend will still work just as before. The only difference is that when a friend is connected to other services like Apple Music, Deezer or neither of them, SoundShare will fetch and play the song from the right source instead of playing it from Spotify.
Trust me, it works. And it’s extremely simple as well. You don’t need to worry about which service your friends are using, or how did they build that playlist. You just need to press play and SoundShare will handle the rest for you using the appropriate service.
SoundShare is free and can be downloaded from the App Store here.
Matt
SoundShare CEO
