I'm a little conflicted about this. The Echo Nest is amazing and does the kinds of things with music analysis that I can only dream of doing, so I wish them every success in the world.

But up until now they've been a fantastic independent force, not attaching themselves to any single music provider. You could use their APIs with Rdio, GrooveShark, whatever you felt like. I'm concerned that will no longer be the case.

It's a venture funded business. There are only three outcomes: sell, go public or crash. What were you expecting?

They also said their API will stay up:

http://blog.echonest.com/post/78749300941/the-echo-nest-join...

...sell to someone that isn't Spotify?

Any company that has both the economic ability and incentive to acquire The Echo Nest would have the same potential to be one-sided in their acquisition as Spotify.

absolutely nothing on the future of the public api.

"The Echo Nest API will remain free and open to support its robust developer ecosystem."

http://the.echonest.com/pressreleases/spotify-acquires-echo-...

Which means at least a year. Maybe two. Then there will be... changes. Little ones at first. Happens every time.

great! thanks for digging that up.