“Shuffler.fm is a music discovery service designed to help users navigate the music shared by blogs in a visual way,” wrote TNW way back in 2011, just as it had launched on the iPad. It essentially brought a Flipboard-esque browsing experience to those seeking to discover new music on their tablets, and eventually opened this up to smaller-screen iOS devices back in August.
Shuffler.fm integrates with a range of music blogs and sites, letting you peruse content from multiple genres – you can tap on a specific style, and the most popular songs being shared by music blogs from a particular genre are unveiled. You can even watch each song’s video, where it’s available, and read more by loading up the original blog post directly within the app.
Now, Shuffler.fm has launched an app specifically for the Spotify platform, almost two months after it unveiled a similar incarnation for the new Deezer App Studio.
The Spotify app is a product of its API launch, and Tim Heineke, co-founder of Shuffler.fm, says that his is very much version 1 of the app, “…with lots of new, better things, coming.”
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The basic premise is simple, and pretty much follows the same path as its other version. With so much music on Spotify (20 million songs, 150,000 added each year), it’s difficult to find what’s good. “We offer curated tastemakers, guides by genre, coming from the latest and hottest music blogs,” says Heineke.
When you first launch the app, you’ll see a compendium of albums and EPs.
Each of these tiles is a link to the music, while the ‘Read More’ links you to a bit of background on the music, plus a link to the original article on the Web. From within the Shuffler.fm app, you can add the tracks directly to a Spotify playlist.
But Shuffler.fm isn’t selling itself as just another playlist service, of which there are many. It’s all about hand-picked music from across the music blogosphere, while playing the music, viewing the cover art and photos, and potentially reading some great stories along the way.
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