Soundrop, the Norwegian startup that offers collaborative playlist ‘listening rooms’ through Spotify and Deezer, has launched a new service called Show.co to help artists promote their music online.

It boils down to a simple, clean audio player that can be shared as a dedicated minisite, embeddable widget or social post. Artwork is shown prominently and there’s a large button in the center for playback; the audio file itself can be uploaded directly or plugged in from either SoundCloud or YouTube.



Show.co is geared towards marketing though. Once the listener clicks play, a series of conversion cards will appear alongside the music player. These are customizable and prompt the user to take certain actions, such as following the artist on Twitter, SoundCloud and Facebook. One of these “cards” will even offer a download in exchange for the listener’s email address.

Alongside traditional links to common third-party services (YouTube, Twitter, Spotify, etc.) there are also customizable “action buttons” which allow the listener to instantly share, buy or stream the track on their preferred service. Artists can then track exactly how listeners are responding to their setup and tweak the player accordingly. Submitted email addresses also appear in a separate part of the dashboard, making it easy to set up a quick mailing list.

Show.co is certainly different from Soundrop. The latter has been threatened, at least in part, by Spotify’s decision to pull support for third-party apps across its native clients. Soundrop can still develop its original service on mobile and through Deezer, but it seems wise to focus at least some of its efforts on a new, potentially more lucrative service such as Show.co.

“We looked at the pain points artists and labels face when trying to promote a new track, expand existing fan bases or strengthen the fan relationships that ultimately lead to revenue,” Jørn Haanæs, CEO of Soundrop said. “Then we built a tool to solve those problems. We want to help artists and labels achieve results that deliver real value and create a positive impact.”

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