Fellody And Tastebuds Are New Spotify Apps To Help You Find Your Perfect Music Partner

This post is written by our regular contributor Natasha Starkell, the CEO of GoalEurope, the outsourcing advisory firm and a publication about outsourcing, innovation and startups in Central and Eastern Europe. Twitter @NatashaStarkell. Gplus.to/natashastarkell.†

There are some of us who believe that having matching tastes in music is an essential for a relationship. Now two Spotify apps are setting out to prove it.

The German founders of Fellody, Robin Simon and Thomas Vatter created an online flirting website where top matches are identified based on users’ music preferences. And they weren’t the only ones.

Today Fellody and Spotify are launching Fellody music flirting app, available in English and German languages. At the same time Tastebuds.fm is launching it’s own Spotify app.

Tastebuds.fm helps you ‘meet people who share your love for music’. The startup has been making waves with users, especially in the UK (lots of dates and at least one wedding so far). The site was founded by two musicians from London: Alex Parish and Julian Keenaghan. Both founders are members of the band Years Of Rice And Salt.

The app integrates with Spotify, scanning a user’s most played music and instantly showing people near to them who have similar tastes. Users can browse prospective dates, listen to their matches’ favourite music and send them a quick message if they catch their eye. The app also allows users to share mixtapes with each other using Spotify’s in-built playlists.

Some 48% of Tastebuds.fm’s users have never used a dating site before so it’s reaching a new audience.

With the Fellody app users drag and drop their Spotify playlists into the Fellody app. Then Fellody compares the songs on the playlists and offers top matches, which users can engage with by sending flirts and messages directly via the app.

Users can also sign up via the Fellody website and add your music history from Last.fm or iTunes. Windows Media Player can also be used to establish music preferences.

Fellody is essentially a social network based on musical tastes, where flirtatious behavior is acceptable and encouraged. Its community shares music in a public feed and cheers with a “this rocks!” button for good finds. Fellody “friends” are called “Groupies” and the whole look and feel of the website is rather fun and cool.

Unlike its competitor, Tastebuds, Fellody might be considered quite purist. You can only upload those music titles you have actually played on your computer, listened to on Last.fm or added to the Spotify playlist. It goes as far as taking into account music genres and play count. This, according to founder Robin Simon, is to prevent someone pretending they like a band only to get attention.

Both founders spend most of their free time with music, and the idea of Fellody was born at one of the music concerts they attended. Simon is a serial entrepreneur, whose previous businesses include Sodatech and Sodapix. He is a lead singer in his band Grant Lassie. His co-founder Thomas Vatter worked for several years as a product manager at German ProSiebenSat.1 Media AG.