Spotify launches Promo Cards for artists

The online tool enables musicians to create promotional graphics for songs, albums and artist profiles in Spotify for Artists. Those who have their music featured on a Spotify playlist can also create a card for that playlist. Users can then share the cards on social media.

Podcasters can also create cards for their shows or podcast episodes in Spotify for Podcasters. The promo cards can be tweaked visually according to colour preference and designed as vertical, rectangular or square cards.

The move could make sharing content easier for musicians and podcasters, while simultaneously promoting the music streaming platform through branded graphics. However, some artists may still continue to use smart-link tools to ensure that fans can listen on whichever platform they choose.

Meanwhile, SongShift – an iOS app that shifts playlists between services including Apple Music, Spotify and YouTube – says Spotify will not let it transfer people’s playlists any more. The app’s developers made the announcement on its blog.

“Unfortunately, as of SongShift v5.1.2, you will no longer be able to create transfers from Spotify to another music service,” SongShift said. “We understand this will be a disappointment for a lot of you. We wish we didn't have to. The Spotify Developer Platform Team reached out and let us know we‘d need to remove transferring from their service to a competing music service or have our API access revoked due to TOS violation. While this is not the news we wanted to hear, we respect their decision.”

Spotify has not commented yet. However, SongShift’s app could be breaching Spotify’s terms of service by accessing and transferring Spotify-curated playlists rather than those of users.

There are a number of apps and websites designed to help users transfer their playlists to other platforms or to maintain playlists across several of them. Cracking down on these tools would not be a good look for Spotify.

Spotify is the co-founder of the Coalition for App Fairness and has lobbied against Apple’s perceived abuse of power as a leading innovator. Last year, Spotify filed an antitrust complaint in the EU against Apple and said its control of the App Store robbed consumers of choice while hindering rival services.