SPOTIFY HAS DEALT a major blow to most of the major radio apps by snapping up the company that powers their music recommendations.

The Echo Nest, which is based in Boston, Massachusetts,  built the service responsible for recommending and suggesting music in radio apps such as Spotify, Rdio, Twitter Music, Vevo, Xbox Music and many others for the last few years.

Now it will be dedicating all of its time on developing Spotify’s music discovery engine after the music streaming service acquired the company for an undisclosed fee.

In its announcement, it said:

This deal will allow Spotify to leverage The Echo Nest’s in depth musical understanding and tools for curation to drive music discovery for millions of users around the globe.

The addition of The Echo Nest to Spotify will also strengthen Spotify’s ability to help brands and partners build amazing music experiences for their audiences.

Spotify says The Echo Nest will continue to remain free and open to all non-commercial developers, but not whether it will allow the same privileges to commercial competitors.

Either way, it’s a blow to its competitors as it gives Spotify a major advantage over their competitors, but Spotify won’t care as it will mean more relevant suggestions for its users further down the line.

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