- Best Free Internet Radio Hosting Share Itunes Google Spotify Music Converter
- Best Free Internet Radio Hosting Share Itunes Google Spotify Download
- Free Internet Radio Hosting Sites
- Best Free Internet Radio Hosting Share Itunes Google Spotify Download
- Best Free Internet Radio Hosting Share Itunes Google Spotify Sign In
- Best Free Internet Radio Hosting Share Itunes Google Spotify Playlists
Top 8 Free Music Data APIs (Updated for 2020) Last Updated on August 3, 2020 by Lindsey 10 Comments. Pulling song lyrics. Streaming playlists. Sorting by genres. There are hundreds of ways to use music data to take your app to the next level. Open Spotify and head to the playlist you want to share. Click or tap the three little dots at the top and select Share. This will give you all the sharing options. Here’s how it looks with the desktop app. And here’s how it looks on mobile. Spotify has a couple of options built in, like sharing over Facebook, Messenger, and Twitter.
When starting your own podcast, you’ll need to carefully plan the steps you’re going to take in order to get your podcast episodes out there and possibly make money from them. Aside from gathering the right equipment, one important thing you’ll need to do is figure out is which podcast hosting platform to use.
Hosting your podcast has become a lot easier as of late, especially with the number of avid podcasters increasing all around the world. There are also more podcast websites than ever, all of which are perfectly capable of allowing your show to reach different audiences. Some are free, some are not, and some are more simplistic than others. All you need is to find out which one best suits your needs.
Top Podcast Platforms
To help you narrow down your choices, we’ve listed down ten of the most popular podcast hosting sites that most beginners and successful podcasters are using today. We’ll tell you about their hosting services, requirements, and other related details so you can decide which one can meet both your immediate and long-term needs.
Libsyn
Pricing: $5 to $75 per month
Monthly Storage: 50MB to 1500MB
Libsyn, or Liberated Syndication, is one of the first podcast sites ever created. As a pioneer in the podcast hosting industry, it began hosting and publishing podcasts as early as November 2004. Now, it hosts over 25,000 shows with over 44 million listeners a month.
The service provider offers everything for your podcast needs, including easy RSS feed integration, customization of information for iTunes, a variety of publishing tools, media hosting and delivery, accurate statistics, ad programs, premium content, apps for different operating systems (iOS, Android, and Windows), and more.
Podbean
Pricing: $3 to $99+ per month
Monthly Storage: 100MB and above
PodBean is home to both podcasters and listeners. Like Libsyn, it has access to a massive audience, as it provides podcast solutions for large organizations and even radio stations. Its simplified interface is ideal for beginners who want to be able to easily upload, publish, manage, and promote their podcasts without any technical training.
Aside from the usual podcast hosting, PodBean extends their service with video hosting and by offering unlimited uploads for premium members and crowdfunding options for podcasters who are looking for income to support their shows.
Buzzsprout
Pricing: $0 to $24 monthly
Monthly Upload: 2 to 12 Hours
Aside from having superb customer support, Buzzsprout prides itself on being a user-friendly site that makes uploading, sharing, and tracking shows super easy without the need for advanced knowledge in technical functions. Even if you’re already with a different hosting company, you can easily switch to Buzzsprout by entering your existing URL feeds—and they’ll import the episodes for you.
Another advantage of being on Buzzsprout is that they have much more flexible and affordable terms—their free plan allows you to upload shows as long as two hours for free every month and up to 12 hours per month under their most “expensive” paid plan.
SoundCloud
Pricing: $0 to $16 monthly
Monthly Upload: 3 Hours to Unlimited
SoundCloud has been a well-known audio file host for the longest time, but they only started offering their own podcast hosting service in 2014. Aside from being able to upload and download audio files, you can now generate an RSS feed for your podcast within the site.
One advantage of using this popular podcast hosting platform is that it already has a large pool of musicians, which draws in lots of listeners—this benefits new podcasters who are looking to reach a sizable audience. It also offers embeddable players to allow you to market your content on social networking sites.
PodOmatic
Pricing: $0 to $74.99 monthly
Monthly Storage: 500MB to Unlimited
For many, PodOmatic offers the easiest way to start podcasting. Simply record straight on the website and it will produce the RSS feed that you can use to get your podcast on iTunes (or Apple Podcasts), Google Play, and Spotify directories.
If you’re looking to increase your listenership or set up possible collaborations, PodOmatic makes for a great platform for connecting with fellow podcasters.
Blubrry
Pricing: $12 to $80+ monthly
Monthly Storage: $100MB to Unlimited
Blubrry is a favorite among podcasters on WordPress. Aside from keeping you from wasting time and effort in integrating podcasts with your WordPress site, it provides statistics to inform you of your listeners’ platforms, podcast clients, geography, domains, and referrers.
If you’re looking to find advertisers, this platform may be exactly what you need. It has a huge—and loyal—client base, which means you can expect this platform to provide reliable service to both podcasters and listeners alike.
Audioboom
Pricing: $9.99+
Monthly Upload: 5 Episodes and Above
Audioboom is a great choice if your main goals are to distribute and monetize your hosted content. The site is capable of distributing your show or entire network via leading podcast services, namely Apple Podcasts, Google Play, iHeartRadio, Spotify, and Stitcher, for maximum exposure.
As a listener, you can also have access to unlimited channels and episodes without having to subscribe to a paid plan. The site also offers advanced statistics as well as embeddable players for your website and social media pages.
Spreaker
Pricing: $0 to $119.99 monthly
Monthly Storage: 5 hours to Unlimited
Perhaps what sets Spreaker apart from most of the other podcast hosting platforms is its beginner-friendly and well-designed interface. Most of the listening is done on the minimalistic Spreaker mobile app, which can also be customized according to your personal preferences. In fact, it offers a variety of apps to suit your specific needs as a host or listener.
Best Free Internet Radio Hosting Share Itunes Google Spotify Music Converter
Fireside
Pricing: $19 monthly
Monthly Storage: Unlimited
The fact that the team behind Fireside are podcasters themselves may just be the assurance that you need to avail of their service. They provide accurate and detailed stats and analytics in real-time, so you can find out how well your show is doing, which episodes are doing better than others, and many more.
If you have your podcast hosted elsewhere, you can easily import them into Fireside without losing your subscribers. You also get an awesome website and blog (with a customized domain name) for your podcast.
Check out the 7-day free trial to see and learn more about Fireside.
Simplecast
Pricing: $12 monthly
Monthly Storage: Unlimited
Another host that has gained the trust of thousands of podcasters is Simplecast. Dedicated to providing its clients with the easiest way to get their audio published, Simplecast offers one-click publishing to major distributors, including Apple Podcasts and Spotify. Like Fireside, they offer just one simple plan that unlocks unlimited storage and plays. They also provide accurate analytics, a customizable website, embeddable players, and many more.
Simplecast also features an option where you can invite others to collaborate with you on future podcasts.
All of these are available with their 14-day free trial, which does not require a credit card.
Feature photo by Thomas Le on Unsplash
Spotify on Wednesday expanded the free tier of its service to all devices, including smartphones and tablets.
In the past, free Spotify users could only access Spotify Radio on mobile devices and tablets, but like other radio services, this prevented them from listening to a specific artist or music in their own playlists. The new offering expands on-demand listening to free users on tablets, and allows smartphone users to listen to their own playlists or music from a specific artist in shuffle mode.
See also: Spotify Expands Free Streaming to All Devices
Spotify created the following chart, which shows the access options that users have:
When it comes to specifics on how everything works, it becomes a bit more complicated. Fortunately, Mashable spoke with Charlie Hellman, Spotify's vice president of product, who broke down the company's new mobile offering.
Can Free Users Listen to Any Song They Want on Mobile and Tablet?
You can listen to any song you want, and in any order, if you use Spotify on a tablet. On iOS, this means the iPad or iPad mini. On Android, Spotify is setting 7-inches in diagonal as the screen minimum for tablets. The app will determine which version of the experience you see in Android.
On the tablet, the play-on-demand feature works the same as it does on desktop. You will have ads every five to six songs, and you can't save playlists for offline listening. Spotify decided to treat the tablet as a desktop after observing how people use the product.
In a post-PC world, the tablet is increasingly becoming the main home computer for many consumers, including Spotify users; for that reason, the company chose to make the experience on-par with what you'd get on the desktop.
On smartphones, only Spotify Premium users have the option to listen to specific songs on-demand.
How Does Free Listening on Mobile Work?
Although Spotify doesn't offer free on-demand listening via mobile, it has substantially expanded the types of music you can listen to, and how you can listen to them.
You can now listen to music from any artist in 'shuffle' mode; this means you can search for an artist, then instantly listen to a station that only features that particular artist. It's a big switch from typical online radio services, such as Pandora and iTunes Radio, which may let you create a station around an artist, but wind up having other artists in the mix, too.
What's more, you can listen to your own Spotify playlists in shuffle mode. Be aware, however, that there are a few rules about how they work.
What Are the Rules for Free Shuffle Mode?
Your playlists will need to meet several parameters to work in free shuffle mode. (Don't worry, Spotify will automatically fill out your playlist if it doesn't meet these requirements.)
They include:
A playlist must have at least 20 songs
A playlist must consist of at least three albums
Even if you list the same track 20 times in a row, it still only counts as one
Spotify said the vast majority of playlists have more than 20 songs, and include many different artists. Although this means you can't listen exclusively to a shuffled mix of Daft Punk's Random Access Memories, you can listen to Rolling Stone's playlist for its top 100 tracks of 2013.
Best Free Internet Radio Hosting Share Itunes Google Spotify Download
Plus, as long as you add a few songs from other albums to your Random Access Memories playlist, you'll be guaranteed to hear the whole album during your listening session.
How Is This Better Than Pandora, Songza or iTunes Radio?
The biggest change is that you can choose to only listen to a specific artist — something the other services don't offer. What's more, you can listen to playlists you create.
Songza is a playlist-oriented Internet radio product, but its licensing rules mean that users can't listen to playlists they create themselves.
This is also true for other streaming services that offer access to curated playlists. Usually, it's fine, especially when users are passively listening to tunes. Where it becomes problematic is if you've collected a bunch of tracks for an event, such as a holiday party. What's the point of having the ultimate holiday playlist if you can't even play it back on your own device?
Can Free Users Create Playlists on Mobile?
Yes. Free users can create their own playlists or add songs to existing playlists in the app; this means if you want to add a track from Spotify Discover to an existing playlist, you can do so without having to worry. You can also create new playlists with music or artists you come across.
How Do Ads Work on Mobile and Tablet?
Just as they do on the desktop and within Spotify Radio now. Interruptions and ads will come every five to six songs.
Should I Bother Paying for Spotify Premium?
This will totally depend on how you listen to music. If you mostly listen to playlists while on your phone, and avoid selecting albums and tracks, you may not feel the need to pay for Spotify Premium. What's more, if you use an iPad or Android tablet for most of your listening, you no longer need to pay to play any song you want.
Still, Spotify Premium continues to have advantages. On the smartphone side, the biggest advantage is that you don't have to deal with ads, and you can save music for offline listening; this is really useful when on an airplane or the subway. Spotify Premium users can also stream audio in higher quality, so if you're an audiophile (at least in the context of streaming music), you get higher fidelity sound.
Spotify told Mashable that getting rid of ads and offline playback are actually the two biggest reasons users upgrade to Spotify Premium. The goal of the new Spotify freemium offering is to encourage users to listen to as much music as possible.
Free Internet Radio Hosting Sites
'We've found that the more stuff we give users, the more users are willing to pay us,' Hellman said. It's a good point. I know I have personally found that the value in subscription music services really shows itself the more I use it. Having more mobile listeners gives Spotify a chance to convert more of those listeners into Premium subscribers.
How Do I Get Started Using the Free Mobile Offering?
Best Free Internet Radio Hosting Share Itunes Google Spotify Download
Make sure you are running the latest version of Spotify for iOS or Android, and the option is available now. For free users, browsing artists or accessing your playlists will show an option to 'Shuffle Play.'
On Android tablets and the iPad, you now have the ability to listen to any track you want at will.
Best Free Internet Radio Hosting Share Itunes Google Spotify Sign In
Best Free Internet Radio Hosting Share Itunes Google Spotify Playlists
Images: Spotify