Weekly Social Media Update
Spotify Apps
Spotify have just announced at a news conference in New York that it will be opening up its platform so that customers can use various apps to enhance their listening experience. The Spotify Apps platform is open for developers and media partners to build apps that will run on Spotify’s desktop application.
The new apps will let you look up song lyrics, find out about gigs and share your musical experiences. At the moment you’ll find apps made by Rolling Stone, the Guardian, Last.fm, Songkick and TuneWiki.
For example the Guardian’s app is going to be all about bringing album reviews from the Guardian and the Observer into Spotify’s service. It will be exciting to see how these two companies’ will work together for a series of live gigs in London.
With Spotify’s launching in the United States this summer and its 2.5 million paying customers it can claim to be the most impressive new technology company to have come out of Europe in the last five years.
The apps will sit within Spotify’s desktop client, with possible extension to mobile in the future. The apps will be available to free and paying users of the service, although for now, developers will not be able to charge for them.
Just a bit of Spotify trivia for you, at the moment it has a catalogue of 15m songs, and roughly 20,000 new tracks are added per day. Which apps will you be using?
Take Google Maps Indoors
Where would we be without Google maps? We all know that Google has spent the better part of the last decade mapping the great outdoors so is it such a surprise that they are going to now conquer the indoor domain?
With the launch of Google Maps 6.0 on Tuesday, users of mobile devices running Android OS 2.1 and up will be able to use Google Maps not just to get directions to an IKEA, Macy’s or one of several airports, but to use the mapping functionality to figure out how to find housewares, ATMs, and your flight gate once you are inside.
Google’s inside mapping will work similarly to how its outside mapping works. A little blue dot will move along with you to show you where you are, and the technology is even able to know what floor you are on.
At the moment the functionality is currently only available for some buildings in America and Japan, and only works on Android mobile phones, Google has already mapped some indoor areas in the UK, for instance for its projects to take people inside art galleries via Google Earth. Keep posted for more indoor locations across the UK.
Burrito Record
On Wednesday 7 December Benito’s Hat is planning a stunt to create the UK’s biggest burrito, which its Facebook fans can then help eat in its restaurant free of charge.
Not only is this a tasty stunt, but it has a charity angle as well. The stunt will help raise money for homeless charities and is also aiming to increase the number of fans on Facebook and bring people into the restaurants.
Benito’s Hat ran a successful campaign last month on Twitter which resulted in a 25% sales boost. They are keen to harness the power of social to not only increase brand awareness, but to drive sales and it looks like it is bringing them results. Check out their Facebook page for details of the event.
Tags: Apps, burrito, charity, Facebook, Google, google maps, guardian, indoor, record, rollingstone, Spotify
