Spotify User Guide

Spotify is a Swedish company that provide a computer application, Spotify, that enables you to instantly listen to a vast catalogue of music! It is very similar in concept to Last.fm if you are familiar with that application. Spotify is currently available in Sweden, Norway, Finland, the UK, France and Spain and expected to be available in America and Canada by the end of 2009. You can browse by artist, album, genre etc... and create your own playlists from the music you listen you and so create personalised virtual 'albums' that you can play back again and again through the Spotify app. You can also share your playlists with other Spotify users and create collabarative lists that many Spotify users add to and update.

Under the covers Spotify uses peer to peer technology to stream your music to you. Although peer to peer technology has been linked to shadier file sharing products Spotify is leading the pack in a fully legal approach to music sharing. You do not actually own, the music you listen to on your computer so you cannot save it for playback via other media players you may have although premium members will be able to save playlists for offline listening, this is a new feature for October 2009. Should you so desire you can purchase the music you are listening to through the Spotify app if you are in the UK, Sweden, France or Spain.

Spotify is funded by both advertisements and paid subscriptions. In the UK both versions are available. In most other countries only the subscription service is an option. In the free service Spotify places adverts both in the Spotify application and as occasional adverts during the music streaming. I must add the adverts are between tracks not during and they are in the form of a standard radio ad. I'm lucky enough to be able to use the free service and do so for hours on end daily and do not find the advertising a problem.

Several websites have sprung up that enable you to share your playlists with other Spotify users, create groups of like minded fellow listeners and add that all important online community presence. One such community, that I use, is the newly relaunched ShareMyPlaylists.com and you can find me here!

Spotify is not a file-sharing application. You cannot save the music to your computer (although from October 2009 Spotify premium members will be able to save playlists to listen to offline). You cannot upload your own music to Spotify to share.

Spotify's creators are vehemently opposed to online piracy and believe by creating a better, legal alternative to sharing music that they will help convert illegal music sharers into legal listeners.

Assuming you are in a country where Spotify is available you have several options; Be invited by a friend who is already using Spotify; Sign-up for the free service without an invite if you are in the UK; Register at Spotify for a free invite; Sign-up for the premium, ad-free, service

Be invited by a friend who is already using Spotify

If you have a friend who is already a premium service member they can send you an invite to join Spotify. Premium members receive two new invitations each time they renew their subscription.

Sign-up for the free service without an invite if you are in the UK

If, like me, you are in the UK getting Spotify is easy, just browse to Spotify.com and register, then download the Spotify application for your computer.

Register at Spotify for a free invite

You can register for an invite at Spotify however they do not state when you are likely to receive it! If you go this route and receive said invite then use the code in the email they send you to activate your account.

Sign-up for the premium, ad-free, service

The invite system is engineered to make premium sign-up the easiest route to Spotify for most would-be users. Simply browse to Spotify.com and select the premium sign-up option. Register and download the Spotify app for your computer.

So you have registered at Spotify and now ready to install. Head over to the download page at Spotify and select your computer operating system page. Currently only Windows and Mac are supported however Spotify do give instructions on running Spotify on Linux.

Once you have download Spotify install the application in the same way as you would for any other application. Spotify guides you through the process, it is quick and painless, trust me! Also check back to the download page at Spotify and you will see they also include instructions should you need more help.

Let the fun begin! Start up your Spotify app and you will be presented with a log-in screen. Enter your registration details into the screen and Spotify will launch.

As a first time user Spotify will launch an introduction panel as well as the main Spotify application. I suggest you follow the introduction panels, shown below, to see what Spotify has to offer and how it all works.

On the right you can see the first intro panel that is shown on launch. There is the Spotify welcome message, a link to the Spotify Blog, and ,on the right of the panel, the 'more' arrow. I recommend you do check out the blog as it can be worth reading and maybe subscribe to their RSS feed for all the latest info.


On the left you can see the second intro panel which is shown when you click the 'more' arrow on the first panel, shown above. If you hover your mouse over the panel it will highlight each section with regards to the text placed around the panel. Check it out, it could save you some time!


After you have closed the intro panel you can see the Spotify home panel, right, where all the good stuff happens!

Pick a song or artist and enter them into the search box, top left, on the Spotify menubar. Pretty quickly you will see the Spotify browse window, main panel on the left of the Spotify app, fill with artist related material. Well, what are you waiting for? Click one of the 'track' results and your speakers or headphones should be filled with crystal clear music. Good isn't it. Click on 'artist' and Spotify will give you a short bio on the artist as well their top hits and albums for you to play. As you start to click away you may want to go back to a previous panel, use the little arrows to the left of the search box to simply move back and forth through your selections.

To make a playlist as you move around Spotify click the '+New playlist' text in the left hand menu. Enter a name for your playlist and then you can either drag your track to your new playlist or right click the track and add to playlist that way.

There are a few tricks you can use when searching for music, you can do 'year:1980' for example to search for music from that year. You can do 'genre:rock' to search for all rock music. Another popular search is 'title:mysong' to find all songs with that title. If you want music from a particular label, no problem, do 'label:mylabel' to access just that label. A new feature on the right-click context menu is the ability to share you playlists to facebook, twitter and delicious. So what are you waiting for, go get Spotify!


Have fun Spotifying!