Spotify has released a new feature that allows developers to “embed” music into their websites for free.
Dubbed Play Button, the service allows sites to embed individual songs or entire albums into their site using an iFrame, as demonstrated below.
However, the Play Button is a little less impressive than it first appears – all it does is launch Spotify. To play music, users must first have the Spotify app installed on their PC, making the Play Button little more than a glorified link to Spotify.
Visitors who don’t have Spotify installed will be asked to download the client first, which may deter some users, as Spotify now demands new customers sign in with a Facebook account.
In our brief tests, the Play Button also intermittently failed to open the installed Spotify app when accessed via Google Chrome, although it worked correctly (after displaying a warning message) in other browsers.
The tool to create a Play Button is published and available to all on the Spotify Developer site.
Use of the button comes with some unusual terms and conditions, however. Spotify reserves the right to “survey your website to verify your compliance” with its terms and conditions, “and you agree not to block or interfere with such efforts”.
The company also warns that it “may use technical measures to prevent over-usage or stop usage of the Spotify Play Button by a website after any usage limitations are exceeded”, without specifying what such limitations are.
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