5 Things Free Users Need to Be Taking Advantage of on Spotify August 27, 2018 Since we launched a new version of our free app, many new and existing users on Android and iOS have gotten to experience the new, improved, ad-supported tier. Listen to Single, Swipe, Repeat on Spotify. At Cosmo and Tinder, we’ve heard tons of dating stories lately, and they’re just too good not to share. Each week, Cosmo’s Sex & Relationships Director, Faye Brennan, will be joined by a new guest host to hear juicy, hilarious and, yes, romantic dating stories from real Tinder users across the country.
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Digital music might not have the same allure as sitting down to listen to a record on your turntable, but what it lacks in atmosphere, it makes up for in convenience — especially when you aren't home with your collection.
- This will reveal a pop-up with many options, including the skip, shuffle, and repeat buttons. Additionally, you'll find the queue icon in the bottom-right corner.
- Use Spotify Shuffler (It’s Free) Basically Spotify Shuffler is a completely free (and safe) third party application which helps shuffle all your music for you much better than Spotify ever does. The only caveat is though you’re going to need to return to Spotify Shuffler every time you want your music to be shuffled.
It's been five years since Spotify publicly launched and shifted the music industry's focus toward streaming as a way to combat illegal downloading. While the streaming business model is far from perfect, even the most casual music fan should test out streaming while it's still growing.
See also: How Spotify Engineered the New Music Economy
If you're just dipping your toe into the stream, follow our beginner's guide and soon you'll be listening to Spotify's massive library without the worry of losing precious hard drive space.
Signing Up
As with most services, you can register for Spotify by connecting your Facebook account for optimal social features, or create an account with your email address.
Pick the subscription that suits your music habits. The prices are in USD, but the tiers are the same internationally: No cost will get you desktop listening interrupted by ads; $4.99 per month allows for unlimited desktop streaming; users who pay the premium $9.99 per month can listen on all desktop (via desktop app or web player) and mobile devices with offline syncing privileges on mobile (Spotify Radio is the only free mobile feature.)
Users at the premium tier can also listen to music at a higher bit rate, which is essential for anyone who has quality headphones or earbuds.
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Before you start listening, check your preferences and privacy settings to make sure you are sharing as much or as little with the world as you'd like. If you connected your Spotify to Facebook but don't want to broadcast your tunes on your News Feed, uncheck the Facebook sharing option. Leave the Spotify sharing section checked to show up in your followers' feeds — this amplifies Spotify's social music discovery potential.
This page is important because you can choose whether or not to make your playlists viewable to the public as soon as you start, or make it public on your own terms. Also, you can opt-out of Spotify showing your top artists and tracks on your public profile, if you aren't one to brag about such things. Plus, you can connect your Spotify account to Last.fm so your scrobbles stay representative.
Organizing Your Music
Library and Local Files
In the left sidebar, you will find your Collection. Here, you can access local files (go to Preferences to manage the folders from which Spotify can import files) and music saved to playlists. The Library section puts all of this music in one place. By accessing the files found on your hard drive, Spotify acts as a one-stop shop for listening to all your music, meaning you don't have to open iTunes or another player.
Playlists
Playlists are Spotify's main draw. You can create your own by clicking the New Playlist button, or following and subscribing to other users' playlists. Bookmark an album by saving it as a playlist, too.
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You can also set up a collaborative playlist among friends to prep for that that perfect road trip or party. Right click on a playlist to check off the collaborative option and share the playlist with your friends. This alt-menu also shows the option to change the privacy settings to 'Make Public' or 'Make Secret,' depending on your preferences.
See also: 11 Tips and Tricks for Spotify Power Users
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If you want to stay up-to-date with a specific user's playlist, click the green 'Follow' button on the bottom of the top title bar, and it will save to your side bar. You'll get a notification when songs are added to the playlist.
Play Queue
This option is ideal for when you aren't listening to an album, since queuing up a song via the right-click menu will place it after the track you are currently listening to, and will interrupt a record.
When listening to a playlist or playing music in the background, the queue is great for accommodating requests and spur of the moment sing-a-longs with friends.
Sharing and Discovering Tunes
In the last year, Spotify has significantly amped up its social and music discovery features to keep up with its competitor Rdio, which prioritizes social discovery.
See also: 7 Music Discovery Tools to Find New Tunes
Following
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Spotify lets you follow friends, artists and organizations (follow Mashable's account here!) to see what your network is listening to. You will get a notification when artists you follow add music to their catalogues.
The social feed lives in the right sidebar, and at the top Spotify will make recommendations to follow, including Facebook friends or artists your friends enjoy. This feed will show what your friends are listening to right now, songs they've added to playlists, new playlists they've created, tracks they've starred, and playlists, songs and albums they've shared on Spotify.
If you didn't register your Spotify account through Facebook, you can still search for friends and organizations via the search bar.
Sending and Sharing Music
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You can highlight your favorite music in Spotify's social feed by sharing via the button on artist, album or playlist pages, or the right-click menu. Write a message and check your connected social networks if you want to share to Twitter, Facebook and Tumblr, too.
The Send tab on the right of the box allows you to send music to individual users in a private message.
Discover
The Discover section is filled with custom recommendations based on your music history. If you are stuck picking out something new to listen to, you can get lost scrolling down this page.
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In addition to suggestions of new artists deemed algorithmically similar to ones you already love, Spotify will remind you of albums and songs you haven't listened to in a while. Sometimes the recommendations don't feel right, but the algorithm can only improve the more you use it. Unfortunately, there is no option to reject or modify suggestions at this time.
If you are unsure you might like one of Spotify's suggestions, hover over the album art until a play button appears. Then click it and hold down to preview the song.
This will interrupt whatever you are currently listening to, but once you let go of the play button, your song will resume. It is not the smoothest listening feature, but it can come in handy, especially when browsing to make a playlist.
Apps
Spotify's unique apps can also help you find music when you aren't feeling inspired, or you'd like a change of scenery. Some apps will tell you the lyrics of the song you're listening to, others will provide you with a review, and a few will show you what is trending on the charts, web and social media.
We recommended the following apps: Pitchfork, This Is My Jam, Domino, Twitter #Music (formerly We Are Hunted), Any Decent Music?, Blue Note, TuneWiki and Billboard.
Radio
Spotify Radio functions like a typical Internet radio service. You can create stations by artist, song, album and genre, and upvote or downvote songs you love or hate. Spotify Radio is free to use on the mobile app, even if you aren't a Spotify Premium user.
Mobile
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Spotify's mobile app is a pared-down version of the web player (tablet apps more closely resemble the web player), from which you can select playlists to download for offline listening, to save your data usage. This is only available for Premium users.
Another feature exclusive to the mobile app is Browse. This saves you the trouble of coming up with a playlist yourself, which is helpful when you're out and about while using Spotify on your smartphone.
Now that you've completed your crash course on Spotify, get streaming!
Mashable composite image: iStockphoto, akindo
Since we launcheda new version of our free app, many new and existing users on Android and iOS have gotten to experience the new, improved, ad-supported tier. With personalized music recommendations from day one and an easy-to-use interface, they can now enjoy unprecedented access to both the music they love and the favorites they’re yet to discover. Simply put, it’s the best way to get music for free.
Read on for our list of the five must-use features in the new Spotify free experience.
1. Let us get to know you with Taste Onboarding:
After you first download and sign in to the free app, you’ll be prompted to choose five or more artists you like. That means we’ll be able to learn more quickly about your favorite artists, songs, and genres. From there, we’ll make some great playlists for you—as well as tailor your home screen for easier music discovery. And the more you listen, the more we’ll learn, getting better with our recommendations and introducing you to artists you’re bound to love.
2. Enjoy On-Demand Playlists:
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We use the data from your taste onboarding to present you with 15 personalized and curated playlists that will be particular to you based on your music taste and how you stream on Spotify, meaning every user gets something different. From playlists such as Discover Weekly to Rap Caviar to Broken Heart and up to six Daily Mixes, these lists will update frequently based on how you interact with them and with the rest of the music you listen to. Within them, you can play songs in any order and skip as much as you like. Once we have enough information about what you like to listen to, we’ll update your Discover Weekly every Monday and Release Radar every Friday. The more you stream, the quicker these will become available. You can find these playlists from your home screen.
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3. Find new music with Assisted Playlisting:
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Making your own playlist? It’s quick and easy. Just start with a title, and then choose a few tracks. In the meantime, we’ll start recommending songs for you to add with the tap of a button. We’ll show songs based on artists in the playlist, your taste profile, and even the title of your playlist—particularly songs with that theme or word in the lyrics—so make sure to choose a title that really describes the vibe you want.
4. Personalize by ♡ing and Hiding:
There’s a new way to fine-tune your streaming experience: by using the new like and hide buttons. Using them can teach us about your tastes so you get recommendations tailored just for you. As you’re listening to songs, note which you “like” by tapping the heart icon ♡. You can also do this with artists, albums, and playlists. This way, the app will get to know what you love and want to hear more of—helping with the personalization process even more. All your liked songs will appear in a new playlist called “Your Favorites,” and new tracks from artists you have listened to will appear in your Release Radar. On the other hand, tapping the “hide” icon ⃠ will ensure you don’t have to hear that song, or others similar to it. You can’t win ’em all.
5. Browse using Data Saver:
Many Spotify users around the world can’t enjoy music whenever they want because of how much mobile data streaming uses. That’s why we created Data Saver, a simple switch that optimizes the listening experience to use less mobile data. Data Saver streams at a lower bit rate so you can listen to more music with less guilt. Note that Data Saver isn’t a default setting, so make sure to switch it on in your settings tab.
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Between more personalization, enhanced playlists, easily creatable playlists, and a data-saving feature, what better way is there to listen to and discover music? Make sure you’re not missing out--listen now for free.