Salut a tous! Launching today at the LeWeb 2011 conference in Paris is the long-awaited SoundTracking Android app. What makes this app super special is that goes above and beyond the SoundTracking iPhone app — taking full advantage of Android capabilities in order to integrate popular music services Spotify and Rdio (for users of Spotify and Rdio). Which means, yes, you can now listen to full songs on SoundTracking instead just of 30 second iTunes snippets.
Hallelujah.
The SoundTracking app itself is stunning, and frictionless; Because of the back button on Android, you longer have to manually switch between apps if you want to post or listen to a song. SoundTracking founder Steve Jang tells me that Android was his number one user request. At number two? Spotify integration.
In order to use the feature, users can hit the plus button in the app’s right hand corner for the “View in Spotify/Rdio” option. SoundTracking Android also senses when you’re listening to music in any music app from Google Music onwards and lets you send that song to SoundTracking, in another key difference from the iPhone app.
These integrations are a big step for SoundTracking, which previously only offered the streaming of 30-second song snippets through iTunes, a fact which annoyed some users (myself included). They also expand SoundTracking’s affiliate revenue capabilities beyond iTunes referrals and into affiliate fees for Rdio.
“We don’t want to decide what music consumption service they should use. We would like to be able to offer a choice,” Jang says. “If users end up liking something they discover through this collective music timeline, they should be able to have a seamless user experience to play it or add it to a playlist.”
Jang says the eventually he’ll consider adding Spotify and Rdio integration to the iPhone version of the app if users show that those features are priorities, which they inevitably will,“The key to all of this is to make it easy and fun for users to post a highly contextual music moment, but also to take what they’ve discovered and play it/playlist it/own it in their music service of choice.”
A product of Schematic Labs, SoundTracking recently announced a one million user milestone and $4.75 million in funding from Accel Partners, True Ventures and Softbank Capital. You can download SoundTracking for free in the Android market by searching “SoundTracking.” And watch a video of MG Siegler interviewing Jang about his grander vision for the service, below.
