Spotify partners with Google Cloud, new Kickstarter project to bring a Spotify “Shuffle”
Spotify has announced that it is abandoning its “traditionalist” approach to running the company’s technical infrastructure, with thousands of Spotify-run servers located in various parts of the world, and switching to delivering music via the Google Cloud Platform.
The company’s VP of Engineering & Infrastructure Nicholas Harteau wrote in a blog post that:
“The storage, compute and network services available from cloud providers are as high quality, high performance and low cost as what the traditional approach provides. This makes the move to the cloud a no-brainer for us. Google, in our experience, has an edge here, but it’s a competitive space and we expect the big players to be battling it out for the foreseeable future.”
Harteau states that Spotify picked Google Cloud not just for its server quality but also because its infrastructure pushed the teams to work more efficiently and more effectively.
In the first few years of its existence Spotify was relying heavily on a P2P network created from the service’s users, but the company shifted to a server-only approach since the shift to mobile made P2P no longer practical.
In other Spotify news, a new Kickstarter project called “Mighty” aims to create a small device that will be able to sync with your Spotify account and play back tracks just like you could with good old MP3s. The device takes a minimalist approach and looks quite similar to an iPod Shuffle.
The Mighty will be water resistant and have Bluetooth support. The company has been working with Spotify to ensure that the hardware does everything it needs to to comply with the streaming service’s licensing agreements. One of the big disappointments of Apple Music was that Apple did not find (or didn’t look for) a way to make the streaming service sync with older iPod devices, including the shuffle.
The new device will enable runners to jog free of their smartphones, and those in need of a break from technology to do without their phones whilst still enjoying their tunes. If you have $79 to spare the Mighty can be yours in November (although, bear in mind this is a Kickstarter so don’t plan your Christmas list around this).
(Andrea Leonelli)