Spotify upgrade adds major new features to site

Spotify is undergoing a major revamp over the next few weeks incorporating social-networking features that allow users to share music with their friends.

The online music streaming service has added links to Facebook and Twitter and in a move that sees it take on the dominance of Apple, users can create a Spotify Music Profile.

This means they can integrate their current music playlists, and even iTunes music libraries with their Spotify account.

The aim is to get people to manage their music collections in one place; preferably with Spotify according to Daniel Ek, Spotify co-founder and chief executive.

In a posting on the Spotify blog, Andres Sehr said that “…Spotify is evolving into a total music management platform. We’ve added a ‘Library’ folder in the left side bar, enabling you to combine your own music library with ours.”

By allowing users to connect to Facebook on the Spotify site, a person’s Facebook friends who’ve selected the same feature will appear in a new ‘People’ sidebar.

This will allow users to send tracks to friends or click on a contact’s name to see playlists they have created and their recommendations. A link also lets users share music choices on Twitter.

The changes are not restricted to people paying for the premium service and will be rolled out over the next few weeks to all users, including those who use the free Spotify service.

Users of the premium service will also be able to export playlists to the iPhone, Symbian and Android mobile applications.