The complete form of API is Application Program Interface, which acts as a software intermediate between two different applications and allows them to communicate. We use API in our life so much, and most of the time, we are unaware of it; for example, whenever we search for anything on google or send someone an email, we use an API.
In 2008 digital music streaming platform named Spotify was launched and changed everything in the music world. It has since dominated the music streaming services field among competitors like Apple Music. Spotify is not the only platform where you can listen to music; it provides a whole other experience, making it different from others. It has a variety of music with different genres, podcasts, and movie tracks all in one place. It is free of charge to use. These are some of the qualities which help Spotify to stand out with these features.
What exactly is Spotify API?
The API of Spotify is known as REST API. This kind of API can be implemented in various ways by the developers. REST is the acronym for Representational State Transfer, which consists of a set of constraints and is used by web services. REST API allows users to access web services quickly and flexibly without processing. The API of Spotify is used to retrieve and manage data of Spotify from the internet. And Spotify supports OAuth 2.0 to validate all API requests.
Web API also uses a similar HTTP protocol used by other internet browsers. We can also access the API from our browser directly. We can also use the Web API to recover other pieces of information from Spotify related to the playlists, tracks, and artists, which allows us to access a large amount of free data available on the internet. The API is designed in such a manner so the user can access it programmatically, and it is retrieved in the JSON (JavaScript Object Notation) format. This program’s search endpoint allows users to retrieve information about various artists, songs, and albums across all Spotify.
Interesting programs can be created to retrieve data through the Web API and present it to the user.
Spotify API
Uses of Spotify API:
- The perfect example is the Artist Explorer feature provided by Spotify, which can be used to explore new artists by combining images of artists, their top tracks, and their relationships and popularity.
- We can use the artist’s picture to listen to a 30-second sample of their music and click on their picture, which displays a tree. Here the artist is ranked by popularity. The application uses various Web API endpoints and valuable libraries like free GeoIP, Charts, geo plugin, d3, and Google Gauge.
- The Spotify API can be used to create multiple projects like we can build a channel that can suggest the users play what kind of music while travelling. A user can identify the music from the picture of an artist.
So we can say that the Spotify API does a beautiful job of enhancing the users’ music experience. Spotify provides its API free of cost, but if someone requires extra features to work with, then they need to pay some cost.