Can you imagine a
world without music? Neither do I. And without Spotify? Hard to imagine, right?
Because today it is the most powerful music platform, with millions of artists,
songs and podcasts where you can choose the music you like the most.
The digital age offers
us a superpower unthinkable for previous generations. And it is that today we
can have almost unlimited songs at our fingertips with just a couple of clicks.
And not just music, but also podcasts and videos, so your bet goes beyond
music.
Today we will see what
Spotify is and how it works, and we will also put this platform face to face
with the other big one for music lovers, Apple Music.
What is Spotify?
Spotify is a Swedish digital streaming audio
and video service platform that offers multimedia content in the form of
music, playlists, podcasts and video clips.
This multimedia
streaming service is available on a diverse variety of devices, such as:
Smartphones, laptops, desktop computers, tablets, bluetooth speakers,
televisions or cars.
Having a Spotify
account is free, that is, registered users of this platform can access much of
the content for free, although with advertising. But, there is also a premium
version without advertising and with a series of privileges in exchange for a
monthly fee.
What is it for?
Over the past few
years, Spotify has become one of the world's most popular options for listening
to music online. This has happened, among other reasons, because it can be used
on almost all digital devices and also, its algorithm makes it much easier to
explore new musical content.
Spotify has more than
365 million active users, of which 165 million are subscribed to a payment
plan. With these figures we can see that we are facing the leading streaming
music platform, and its success is becoming more resounding every day.
How does Spotify work?
Spotify is a very
intuitive platform where each user can customize the music or content they want
to listen to.
Thanks to the algorithm
of this application, the tool itself presents suggestions based on the user's
tastes, which means that each person has a different application dashboard.
Let's see the main
features that make this application such a useful tool to enjoy music.
1. Find music of all kinds
You can search by
artist, song, genre, or album. You can also search for playlists created by
other artists or users of the platform. The search possibilities are limitless.
2. Create your custom playlists
You can group the
songs you like the most for different occasions or times of the day. Making
playlists is very simple, both from the computer and from the mobile app.
You just have to click
on the menu of the song you like, press add to playlist and put it in any of
your lists, or click on the option to create a new list.
3. Listen to music online or offline
You can listen to your
playlists whenever you want when you are connected to the Internet. Downloading
your playlists is a feature available for the Premium version, which can save a
long plane ride or a field trip.
The songs are stored
within the app and you can access them at any time by activating the offline
listening tab.
4. Discovery Weekly
Spotify's algorithm
creates a list every Monday with personalized recommendations based on the
music you've listened to in the last few days, related songs, and users with a
profile similar to yours.
Thanks to this
functionality you can discover music from genres that interest you every week.
In addition, it also notifies you of the releases of your favorite groups.
5. Artist, album or playlist radio
It is the “manual
mode” of weekly discovery. You can enter the radio of a song, album, playlist
or artist that you like and you will see a playlist with related songs. It's
the perfect tool if you're always looking for new music to listen to.
6. Share the music you like
You can share it like
any other content on a social network, through Email, WhatsApp, or other
messaging applications.
There are more and
more possibilities to integrate Spotify into other applications. For example,
if you use Notion, you can embed a playlist within a page of this productivity
tool.
7. Know what your friends are
listening to
This platform allows
you to see what your friends are listening to, and investigate their musical
tastes.
In the same way, your
contacts can see everything you listen to. And if you don't want anyone to know
your activity on Spotify, you can hide it by selecting the private session
mode.
8. Song lyrics and videos
More and more artists
include interactive album art with video or lyrics in their Spotify songs. You
can learn the lyrics and watch the video without leaving the app, while
listening to the song.
Differences between Spotify Free and
Spotify Premium
Now let's see what
Spotify Premium is, and the differences between this paid version and the free
option of the application.
1. Cost
Spotify's beta version
is free. To start enjoying your favorite music, you just have to download the
app on the device where you are going to use the platform, and have an Internet
connection to use it.
Spotify Premium costs
€9.99 per month. You can download a free trial version for 1 month before
subscribing to the paid plan.
In addition to this,
which is the standard price, you have the Duo plan (€12.99 per month), the
Family plan (€15.99 per month) and the Student plan (€4.99 per month).
2. Benefits
Spotify Free has
advertising. It is the reason why you can listen to music for free. After
listening to some songs you have to listen to one or two commercials to be able
to continue enjoying the content.
When you use Spotify
Free from a computer you have almost the same features as if you have Spotify
Premium. However, when you do it from a mobile device, you can't choose the
song from a playlist, access the playlists created by you, or skip the song
more than 6 times, which makes the experience a bit difficult.
With the Premium
version of Spotify, you can listen to all the content you want without ad
interruptions, both on your mobile and on your computer. You can choose any
song, go from one to another, access all the playlists, etc.
Another great
advantage of Spotify Premium is that you can download your favorite playlists
and listen to them without having to be connected to the Internet.
3.Audio
Spotify has 3 audio
output settings. The format they use is Ogg Vorbis. If you go for the paid
plan, you get higher sound quality than the free version.
The paid version has a data transmission speed of 320 kbps, so the audio is heard in a very high quality both on your computer and on your mobile device.