When Spotify first launched, it followed the startup golden rule to great success: do one thing extremely well. That thing was streaming. Only now, a whole bunch of music services do that one thing pretty well too.Five years later, the digital media landscape has exploded, and the company to come out on top will be the one that can unify the resulting disjointed consumer experience. "We go one place for songs (i.e. Spotify, iTunes, Soundcloud), another for band info (i.e. band website, Pitchfork), and another for music videos (i.e. Youtube)," Motherboard's Sam McDougle pointed out last year. Someone has to be the one-stop-shop that does all these things, and does them well.
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Enter Spotify’s “Discover” feature, which it officially rolled out to users this week (as of now, available on the web app only, and rolling out “gradually” to desktop and mobile). Slow clap for Spotify. It finally offers a music discovery feature. The real question is, is it any good?In theory, yes. The feature works off the idea that the best music discovery solution is a combination of man and machine—not relying solely on a computer algorithm or what your friends think you should to listen to, but some magical mix of the two.
Spotify Discovery uses the music intelligence technology powering Spotify’s radio and incorporates various apps built off its API. The Pitchfork app adds news and reviews into the Discover feed; the Songkick app alerts you to artists’ upcoming shows. The human element comes in through its Follow feature, which was first announced back in December. It gives you access to playlists by friends, celebrities, and "tastemakers" you choose to follow.I have some beef with this part. The last thing anyone needs now is another social network to manage in which you only get its benefits after you put in gobs of social media work. This is why Twitter going into the music space was logical—except most people don’t decide to follow folks based on their music taste. (Not to mention a myriad other reasons #Music falls flat.)It's also why Google Play All Access is so promising. Creepy factor aside, Google has built up a huge amount of "knowledge" about you without you having to do any work—not the least of which is access to your entire music library if you've uploaded it to the cloud.
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Combining this personal and social data with its algorithmic know-how, Google’s potential to make intelligent recommendations is thus far unmatched. While Spotify Discover also recommends tracks and artists based on your listening history, even if you don’t follow any artists or friends, it’s way, way less useful or impressive without that follow feature. (Video could be the dealbreaker. Spotify hinted at adding streaming video to its portfolio, but Google’s the one with the silver bullet here: YouTube.)I fear this latest rollout is too little too late for Spotify. (I say “fear” because I’d much prefer the Scandinavian startup beat out a corporate tech giant.) The company waited three years to add a radio feature to compete with Pandora, and it’s still not as good. It didn’t have a web app until Rdio started picking up serious steam. When it became clear leaning on Facebook for social wasn’t cutting it, it scrambled to get start its own social discovery network—and must have been sweating bullets when Google Play rumors started swirling early this year.Still, Spotify shouldn’t be discounted. The new “Audio Preview” feature, which pauses what you’re listening to currently to give a quick preview of a track or artist you may want to flag for later, is smart. And when it comes to just listening to the music you dig, Spotify is still king—as evidenced by the recent record-settling listening fest of Daft Punk’s Random Access Memories, streamed more than 8 million times on Spotify in the first week, and the single “Get Lucky,” streamed 27 million times and counting.Spotify got a running start ahead of other subscription streaming services and it has volume going for it, with 24 million monthly users and 20 million songs. The sheer size means there’s huge potential for discovery—if Spotify can crack it.
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