Swarm.fm is the latest music-themed app to hit Spotify‘s burgeoning platform, having secured first prize at Spotify’s Music Apps Hack Weekend earlier this year.
The premise behind Swarm.fm is simple – it taps Facebook’s Open Graph to surface music activity from your friends, and makes it instantly playable inside Spotify. You can browse through the activity feed, or delve deep into any friend’s musical taste, regardless of whether they’re using Swarm.fm.
This, of course, means you have to connect your Spotify account with Facebook to use this service…something that won’t be to everyone’s liking. Nonetheless, it’s a very nice, neatly built app.
Once you’re connected with Facebook, Swarm.fm surfaces all the music your friends are listening to and displays it for you. It also recommends new releases based on your music taste…
…while letting you search by year.
In terms of connecting with friends, you can decide who you want to see activity from, and even mute those with bad taste.
Swarm.fm is a small, privately-backed company stemming from Sydney, San Francisco, New York and London. “We built +Music, which received over 800,000 downloads, and won the two biggest music tech competitions of the past 12 months,” says co-founder Peter Watts. “Now, with our Spotify app, we’re taking music discovery to a new level. We’re passionate fans who are striving to redefine the online music experience.”
Indeed, the +Music app Watts discusses went on to win a $10k via an Echo Nest challenge, before scooping its $10k prize at Spotify’s Hack Weekend for Swarm.fm.
Swarm.fm lets you explore Spotify’s vast catalog, offering up new releases, artist profiles and instant mixes, and it’s worth checking out.
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