Here’s the first in a series of posts about the nominees in The Spotties. We start with a look at the candidates for Best URL Tool.
With the introduction of Spotify’s metadata API, tools and apps arrived that could manipulate Spotify HTTP links (or URL). Some shorten it, others make it human-readable, while others provide additional information on the page that launches the link.
Cleanify
Cleanify was one of the first tools to use Spotify’s metadata API. It “cleanifies” Spotify links to create URLs that are human-readable. For example, Front 242’s album Moments has the Spotify link:
http://open.spotify.com/album/6JypWZh2hWbISoQm7NLvmR
this becomes:
http://cleanify.net/play/album/front-242/moments
Cleanified links can be created for single tracks, artists, or albums (but not for user playlists). There’s also a Cleanify API and a Clipboard Filter. The Clipboard Filter is a Windows application that runs in the background and converts all Spotify URLs you copy into Cleanify links.
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Decode Spotify URIs
This webapp decodes a Spotify URI or HTTP Link to return a nicely-formatted webpage showing the album or single’s track details, album art, year, duration etc. All the tracks and artist names are clickable to open in Spotify. The developers also created @spotifyuri, a Twitter-bot that tweets back at you with details whenever you tweet a Spotify link.
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LNK.by
LNK.by is a URL shortener with a difference: its hook is that the shortened links contain a keyword depending on the type of media in the link. For example, a link to a YouTube video is shortened to http://WATCH.IT. Paste in a Spotify link and LNK.by returns with http://SPOTIFY.ly. For example:
http://open.spotify.com/album/6JypWZh2hWbISoQm7NLvmR
becomes:
This reduces the number of characters from 53 to 21. Other URL shorteners may give even shorter results (http://j.mp for example), but having SPOTIFY in the URL is a handy way to show what’s behind the link.
LNK.by also includes its own API and a JavaScript you can drag to your toolbar for easy link-making. There’s also support for Spotibot URLs, so no need to disable the Spotibot Greasemonkey script.
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spo.tl
From the creator of Spotifitunes, spo.tl is a Spotify URL shortener that’s like a megamix of LNKby and Spotibot Better Links, as it provides “shorter, prettier Spotify links.” Enter a Spotify address (or use the provided bookmarklet) to get a shortened URL and clean page that includes album art, track details and sharing links. For example:
http://open.spotify.com/album/6JypWZh2hWbISoQm7NLvmR
becomes:
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Spotibot Better Links
The Spotibot suite includes a Better Spotify Links service. You take a normal Spotify HTTP Link and replace “open.spotify.com” with “spotibot.com”. This works for albums, tracks, and artists and provides a launch page that includes track listings and duration, album art, biography (for artists), and sharing options to Twitter, FaceBook etc. The shared links are shortened too. All this can be done automatically using browser plugin. For example:
http://open.spotify.com/album/594WzsoemHrjVoBQOYqTKd
becomes:
http://spotibot.com/album/594WzsoemHrjVoBQOYqTKd
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Social Spotify
A novel way to share your playlists with friends, this site lets you add album art and genre details then provides a Facebook post or widget code. There’s no login required: all you do is go to the site and paste in your playlist URL. You can then set the genre, give it a title, and upload some album art. Once done, click one of the share buttons to either share on facebook or share on blog or website. Sharing on Facebook posts a wall comment with the playlist details and album art. The second share link displays some widget code for you to copy and paste into a blog post or webpage.
Social Spotify’s Facebook sharing is better than Spotify’s own in-built options (which doesn’t even include the playlist’s name) as it shows the playlist art, name, number of tracks and genre. The widget clicks-thru to show you the playlist’s track-listing too: very cool!
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