Radioline, a European radio aggregation platform, has launched a new mobile app (iOS and Android) for users in the U.K. and France. The key new feature exports favorite tracks from radio streams to Spotify or Deezer.
Besides a definite coolness factor in this feature, it represents an advance of an existing usability trend — namely, moving music from a non-interactive environment to an interactive environment. We have spotlighted that feature many times in our coverage of music-tagging apps Shazam and SoundHound. Radioline brings a similar functionality to an entirely different music-discovery realm, and a different “use-case scenario.” (That’s what product developers label the way consumers use things.)
Radioline’s Internet radio experience provides a more passive, lean-back music discovery proposition than recognition apps like Shazam and SoundHound, which must be activated by the user to identify a particular piece of audio. With Radioline’s new feature, the listener’s attention can be grabbed by a song, and when tagged as a favorite that song can be directly exported to Spotify or Deezer for on-demand listening and playlist-building. In other words, the dedicated music-tagging apps, which can be used as a bridge to accomplish the same thing, are unnecessary. Radioline has built its own bridge.
The new app is available now in both major mobile platforms, if you are in the U.K. or France. Wider release (web and “rest of the world”) will happen in April. We look forward to reviewing the app at that time.