Just like you can embed YouTube videos, Spotify’s Play button will let you embed songs, albums and playlists on your website or blog. Then, when visitors click on the play button, they will be able to listen to the tracks without leaving the page.
There’s a catch though – because of licensing rules, you will still need the Spotify desktop app running in the background. If you’re not a registered user, you’ll be prompted to download the app and sign up for the service (free with ads, up to $10 monthly for premium service).
[Related: 14 Tips and Tricks to Take Spotify to the Next Level]
To get a Play widget for your website, all you have to do is right-click any song, album or playlist in Spotify to get the special URL, which you then paste into embed.spotify.com. If you use Tumblr, you can also search and pick through the entire Spotify library straight from the Audio Post tool. Here’s how a Spotify Play button looks like:
You can choose between compact or more prominent versions of the widget, and you just paste the resulting code on your website. If you spot a Play button that you like anywhere on the Web, you can also get the code for it directly: just hover over the top right corner and click to get the embed code.
Spotify’s Play button could become popular among online publishers, which had limited options to legally embed a song on their pages. Publishers could use either YouTube videos or see whether the song was available on SoundCloud. Artists are also paid for every play.
Last, but not least, the Play button will make it worth while for more people to download Spotify, even if they go for the free plan, which currently offers unlimited streaming (with ads) in the U.S., and has limits in other countries. So even if you don’t use Spotify for all your music needs, it could become a must-have to listen to licensed songs legally embedded on websites.
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