This article was published on May 10, 2012

Spotify launches Tastebuds.fm and Fellody apps to inspire love between music fans


Spotify launches Tastebuds.fm and Fellody apps to inspire love between music fans

Spotify has launched two new ways for music fans to find love via their musical tastes. The Tastebuds.fm and Fellody apps allow users to match around the music they like and send messages or flirt through systems that are integrated into spotify.

Face it, when you hate someone’s taste in music, it can be a real deal breaker, so at least having one thing in common might get a relationship off to a better start. Using these apps means that music fans looking for love can find a match without going to a separate dating site.

Both apps scan a user’s music library to find tracks in common. From there, users can choose to contact people nearby to try their luck.

The Tastebuds.fm app allows users to share mixtapes with each other using Spotify’s in-built playlists. So that’s one item on the romantic check-list already sorted out then and there.

With Fellody, users can check the app’s community and see what’s trending in musical choices with other users.

Both apps are tapping into a rich vein of users with Spotify, already other applications have found success working with the streaming service’s audience. Songkick has registered over 100,000 new users via its Spotify app, and the dating services hopes to see similar growth.

Internet dating is not only popular, but has matched so many people that it has basically become an online norm. That said, you have to click on the profiles of many frogs with a GSOH before you can find the prince or princess that you really WLTM and that’s a bit of a bore. Having a point of shared interest at least makes introductions a little bit easier.

The Fellody service can makes matches across iTunes and Windows MediaPlayer libraries or alternatively with their Last.fm or Spotify account. The startup launched in 2011 and established a community where dating is important, but loving and discussing music comes first.

While being bootstrapped Tastebuds.fm has attracted over 50,000 registered users, with the greatest take-up in London and promising growth in the US and Brazil. It has high engagement rates too, users are far more likely to get a response to a message and 43% of first messages get a reply.

Over a million messages have been sent via the existing Tastebuds.fm website, and the service already boasts two marriages and plenty more engagements. For music fans currently in a happy relationship the app also lets users search for people who are looking to make new friends, that’s a nice way to alleviate the pressure of having to present yourself perfectly in your first message at least.

What your music says about you

Tastebuds.fm not only provides a dating service but it also finds interesting metrics. According to the site, Coldplay fans are least likely to go all the way on a first date, and the Canadian grunge-rock group Nickelback is the number one music turnoff for the Tastebuds.fm community.

If you’re passionate about your favourite tracks but a bit shy about admitting your more questionable choices, users are also able to remove any guilty pleasures from their profile once they’ve created an account. So you can unleash your hidden love of chick-flick soundtracks after you’ve convinced everyone that you’re ahead of the curve with the latest streaming top 100.

Music is a medium that is becoming easier to share and talk about online. Given good relationships rely on communication, the Spotify collaboration with these apps is bound to spark some chatter and maybe even something more.

Tastebuds.fm

Fellody

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