With this API set, developers can browse and search the catalog for artists, albums and tracks; access country specific tops lists; and deliver 30-second previews or even full songs. Additionally, developers can look up extra metadata for any piece of content, such as an artist’s album list or song list. Related, developers are able to access an extensive set of artist and album images, as well as deep-links into existing Xbox Music applications across the wide range of platforms, including Windows, Windows Phone, Xbox, Web, iOS, and Android. 

Lastly, we have an affiliation offer that generates revenue for every content purchase or Xbox Music Pass subscription signup that are driven from your experiences to ours.  We have generous affiliate payouts at 5% for purchased and a recurring 10% referral payout for subscriptions – that’s $1 per user per month!  Check out the Xbox Music developer site to find out more about the API.

Hope to see you there in Sweden, or at the next music Hackathon we attend!

API Features

The API is a set of easy to use REST methods, including CORS, JSONP and Flash cross domain support. The complete documentation is available here.

Music is first and foremost about content. We've opened access to our 38 million track catalog in 23 countries. We let you search our catalog for artists, albums and tracks. Once you've found what you're interested in, you can lookup extra information for that piece of content, such as an artist's albums. Want to make content more appealing in your application? We also give you access to an extensive set of artist and album images. We also provide deep-links into existing Groove applications on most of our platforms.

Taking it a step further, you get access to user authenticated features of Groove. User authenticated features will at first be restricted to members of our pilot program. Read the subscriber's music library and playlists, add new music content or create new playlists. Curating content to fit a user's taste is complex. With access to a user's personal collection, you can tailor your experience to better meet his needs in your experience. Everything you do to the user's collection and playlists will roam seamlessly to Groove first party apps as well as other third party apps like your own.

I'm sure the question you're all burning to ask is how to get access to actual music in your own applications. The good news is that we're providing full access to 30 second MP3 previews for our entire catalog. They're served as HTTP progressive downloads, making it simple for you to use them. If you want to push integration further, we allow access to full track streaming for Groove Pass subscribers.

You no doubt know that authentication is often a tricky bit when integrating with third party services. We're providing simple to use single sign-in integration with Microsoft Account for user authenticated scenarios.  For other features, you only need to sign-up to the Groove offer on Azure Data Market to get an access key.

All the above is subject to a terms of use which all developers should read carefully before launching any integration experience.

Affiliates

On top of service features, we're also launching a generous affiliates offer. Every user you redirect to the Groove application can earn you money on content purchases and Groove Pass subscriptions.

To make things even better, we're not limiting the affiliates program to the device the user was on when clicking on a link. The user could be opening up a link on his Windows 10 tablet and subscribing on a Windows Phone. You would still be getting affiliation revenue sharing for that subscription.

Learn more about the Microsoft Private Program

Easy to integrate

Since we started opening up the API, multiple tutorials and open source clients have been published by the developer community we've seen great responses from the developer community. We want to make it very easy for you to start experimenting and integrating with Groove. Check-out our new Groove for developers GitHub account page for a sample portable .Net SDK.

Have fun and rock out!