Spotify on Wednesday launched a development platform designed to let third parties create applications that integrate with its popular digital music-streaming service.
By giving external programmers access to its platform, Spotify hopes to make its service more appealing and multifeatured through applications that boost and extend its social and music capabilities, the company said.
The Spotify Platform, as it’s formally called, is launching with a set of initial applications from companies like Last.fm, SongKick and TuneWiki, which respectively integrate editorial content, lyrics and concert calendars into the service.
Spotify, available in Europe for years, launched in the U.S. in July, and made a big splash in September at Facebook’s F8 developer conference, where it was featured as one of the first companies to tightly integrate with Facebook using the social networking site’s latest developer tools.
Spotify currently has about 10 million registered users, including about 2.5 million who are on a fee-based tier of the service. Spotify has some 15 million songs in its catalog.