by Carolyn Heneghan
In today’s online social landscape, apps reign king. They’re on your phone, your desktop, your tablet, and even on your social media profiles. Facebook and Spotfiy both started out as non-app platforms. But as the app technology rose in popularity, both have assimilated themselves to the trend and added its functionality to their respective services.
As a more generalized social media presence, Facebook’s apps run the gamut, but many of them are indeed geared to music—a popularly shared subject on walls across the globe. Spotify began as a free music streaming service, so its apps are all music-based. Both have partnered with developers to share the best types of music apps for their respective audiences, and both have seen certain apps and certain types of app rise above the rest.
What Can Music Apps Do for Me?
Apps for both services cover a wide range of music-related topics. The most popular apps tend to involve music discovery, connecting with artists, and creating and sharing playlists. But there are apps that help you find lyrics, create a hangout for you and like-minded listeners, stream radio stations, watch and share music videos, or receive “push” notifications for music and video releases, tour announcements, and so on. There are plenty of musician-facing apps too that allow bands and solo artists to connect with their fans in new and innovative ways.
Facebook’s Top 5 Music Apps (For Now)
The top two most-used apps are actually both band-facing, so we will skip them for the purposes of this list. They are BandPage and My Band, which both enable bands to customize a Facebook hub containing all of the information about their tours, music, pictures, Twitter and wall postings, and so on. My Band also allows fans to add and share music as well as buy tickets to a show or even music from right there in the app.
- Spotify. A bit ironic, Facebook’s otherwise top used app is Spotify itself. Along with 2.2 million other users, you can connect with your Facebook friends via shared playlists that you’re currently listening to or that you’d like to share with a friend.
- Music (iLike). At 1.5 million users, iLike creates a music tab on your profile that allows you to do a little of everything, including create and share playlists, receive concert notifications, discover and share new music, and even play the iLike Challenge to prove your music smarts.
- Bandsintown. More than 4.2 million users use this app to keep track of when and where their favorite artists will be coming to their town, and musicians can share with their fans their tour schedule and ticket info. The service reaches over 20 million unique Facebook users per month.
- YouTube Video Box. Also not a shocker, this app, used by 850,000 people, allows users to share their favorite videos to their profile and Facebook Pages. In addition to the standard YouTube share function, you can also view your friends’ favorite videos and sync your YouTube.com account. The YouTube app itself came in sixth/eighth place with 590,000 users.
- iLike this Artist. In relation to the other iLike app, iLike the Artist lets musicians show off their fan count across the iLike network and add an “iLike this artist” button to their band page.
Spotify’s Top 5 Music Apps (For Now)
Spotify released its ten most popular apps of 2012 with its 2012 Spotify Review of the Year.
- TuneWiki. This app allows you to sync lyrics and auto-scroll through them. You can use it to sing along to all of your favorite songs, matching the words as you listen through it.
- Soundrop. Soundrop presents a series of themed chat rooms based on the genres, music, and artists you want to talk about with fellow music lovers.
- We Are Hunted. This music discovery app places emphasis on “cool” and emerging artists. Based on what you listen to, the app recommends playlists in tune with what other users are listening to.
- Last.fm. Last.fm offers personalized recommendations based on the music that you choose. It was Spotify before Spotify existed, but it is moving more toward being a social network for music.
- Pitchfork. Brought to you by the magazine of the same name, this indie-lover’s Bible is the “Essential Guide to Independent Music & Beyond” and a companion to the Pitchfork website.
Facebook’s Top 5 vs Spotify’s Top 5
Besides Spotify and YouTube, Facebook’s top apps are generally there to link bands and fans, allowing them to share music and information between them. Facebook is the more social platform of the two and encourages sharing with friends and fans at every turn. So it should come as no surprise that this is the primary function for all of the top 5 (top 7 including the skipped two) Facebook apps.
Spotify is a bit more single user-focused, and most of the service’s top apps are geared toward that individual user’s ability to discover new music, with the exception of Soundrop. As Spotify is still a music streaming service at its core, it also comes as no surprise that its top apps would mostly deal with music discovery and personalized playlists.
Both services are free, and both offer a different selection of apps that meet different needs. Based on your personal and social preferences, either of these platforms may have just the right app to enhance your music experience.
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