We released a new version of Spotify this week. Except for a few bug fixes there should be no visibile changes in the client:

• A bug causing playlist changes to be lost or lists to hang in a “Loading…” state was fixed.
• When playing playlists with shuffle active, the first track will no longer be the same every time.
• When deleting tracks in a sorted list, the selection will now move to the next track in the sorted order, not in the unsorted order.

And The Winner for Best Song is… “Falling slowly” from the movie Once by John Carney, starring Glen Hansard and Markéta Irglová!

You can read more about previously awarded songs at Wikipedia. Which one is your favorite?

By the way, I just love the last words in Glen Hansard’s acceptance speech: “Make art. Make art. Thanks.”

As we continue to grow at Spotify we’re looking to expand our commercial team.

• Sales Director, Nordic
• Sales Director, France
• Sales Director, Germany

Do you know your CPMs from your CPCs, your pre-rolls from your interstitials and your widgets from your rich media? Are you passionate about the way brands communicate and how the internet offers new means for doing so?

We are now looking for hungry, enthusiastic people with great networks of media agency contacts to join us and become the evangelist for Spotify in their own home market.

You will be responsible for introducing the concept to media planners and buyers, then working with them closely to ensure we add great value to their schedules. Building and leading your advertising sales dream team, you’ll play a huge part in making Spotify a place where talented people have a great time working hard.

We can offer loads of potential for personal development, competitive benefits and a chance to be part of something really special from the very beginning.

If this sounds just like you, or someone else you know, please contact jobs@spotify.com for more details.

Come join the party!

Jonathan Forster
Business Development

We released a new version of Spotify yesterday. Some bugs were fixed and a new linking mode was introduced. It is now possible to link to positions in tracks, such as Jimi Hendrix’s famous guitar solo in Little Wing. If you want to create such a link, just append a hash mark followed by the position to the Spotify URI, like this: spotify:track:0x6sp8GeimTiAUVGkp3ZGv#1:40.

Other changes include:

• User settings can be changed.
• We mark all collaborative playlist (including your own) with a padlock icon.
• Spotify for Windows can upload crash reports.

Fixed bugs include:

• A crash bug that was triggered by playlist deletion.
• The way Spotify handles positions in lists has been changed. This should solve some of the bugs related to modifying playlists.
• Spotify now behaves much better on two screens.

We also allow under-age users to sign up for Spotify if they have their guardian’s consent.

It’s Valentine’s Day, and what better way than music is there to describe lovely and romantic feelings? So we started the collaborative playlist “Love” – add the playlist, enjoy some love music and why not contribute with some of your own romantic favourites?

Today it’s Monday and this is my cure:

The photos were sent to me by one of our lovely beta testers, with whom I share my love for The Cure!

Thanks a lot, Andreas! :)

We have started testing ads in Spotify for a group of interested beta testers. If you want to be a part of the test, please let us know and we’ll get you some ads. In this phase we’re testing different formats and models, so any ideas, input or feedback is highly appreciated. How would you like to see ads in Spotify and what do you consider a good ad?

Something weird happen today: I got back from lunch and half of the team was stored in a server rack… I thought they were doing some kind of claustrophobic test but apparently they were just checking the quality of our new server rack. :)

This rack could contain four developers!

Thanks a lot to Daniel, Börje and Stefan at Diligentia for the best fredagsfika ever! This healthy stuff is exactly what the developers need after a crunch week like this! :)

Today is Mardi Gras, which in Sweden is celebrated by eating a pastry called a “semla“.

So this afternoon, we all took a break from our keyboards and sat down together to have a semla. And I even had one for breakfast (!) this morning.

This nice animation is from last year’s Mardi Gras at Spotify. You can really see how good this pastry tastes!

Make sure to have a semla and listen to some Mardi Gras music you too!