Music streaming service Spotify has partnered with SoundHound, a company that makes music recognition and discovery software for mobile devices. SoundHound users who use the company’s Android or iOS app to discover new songs will soon be given the option to stream the song from Spotify instantly.
Much like its main competitor Shazam, SoundHound “listens” to a song that’s playing and then checks the audio sample against a large database of music to determine what the song is called and who it’s by. It can even determine the name of a song based on users humming or singing it into the app, although the accuracy of the results can vary.
With this integration, SoundHound users can not only discover what the song is, but can then open it in Spotify and stream it in its entirety or save it for later. From there, they can easily search for more music by that artist to see if they’re more than a one-hit wonder.
The partnership gives both services at least a slight advantage over its competitors, as Spotify gains a new source of potential subscribers and SoundHound tacks on a feature that sets it apart from similar services. Shazam, for example, lets users purchase tracks from iTunes , but they can’t stream them instantaneously without paying for and downloading them individually.
This feature only works for Spotify Premium users and for now, appears to only be available in Europe.
