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Tag: playlists

  • Spotify Will Make You a New Playlist of Deep Cuts Every Monday

    When it comes to differentiating itself for the pack, there’s only so much a streaming music service can do in terms of content acquisition – they either have a song, or they don’t. Exclusives and better licensing deals can make one service more attractive than the other, but for the most part, most top-tier streaming platforms all offer the same music.

    Surfacing that music and getting it to subscribers’ ears is how a streaming service can stand above the crowd – so personalized playlists and specialized curation are what services like Apple Music, Google Play, Pandora, and Spotify are putting a lot of work into these days.

    Spotify is the latest to offer something new. The company is calling it Discover Weekly, and it’s an evolving playlist of “new discoveries and deep cuts” delivered to users every week.

    Each playlist will be crafted based on your current listening habits and the activity of other Spotify users.

    “For the first time ever, we’re combining your personal taste in music with what similar fans are enjoying right now. This means every song in Discover Weekly is based both on your own listening as well as what others are playlisting and listening to around the songs you love – making your playlist completely unique and full of deep cuts and new discoveries,” says Spotify. “It’s like having your best friend make you a personalized mixtape every single week.”

    The Discover Weekly playlist will update every Monday, and will contain about two hours of music.

    “As your music taste evolves, so will Discover Weekly. In fact, the more you listen, the better it gets. And because it’s a playlist you can access and listen to it across all your platforms and devices. Plus, sharing it with friends or making it available offline for your Monday commute is super easy.”

    You can find it sitting atop your playlist section in the coming weeks.

  • Spotify Lets Brands Tailor Ads Based on Your Mood with New Playlist Targeting

    Spotify Lets Brands Tailor Ads Based on Your Mood with New Playlist Targeting

    Spotify’s ad offerings for brands have included audience targeting for some time – based on age, gender, location, platform, and genre preferences. Now, Spotify’s turning to playlists to unlock users’ current moods, so advertisers can know if users are in chill mode or turn-up mode.

    The company has just announced playlist targeting for brands, set to kick off May 1.

    “Music is an integral part of life, day in and day out,” said Jeff Levick, Chief Revenue Officer, Spotify. “Our new targeting solutions based on rich behavioral insights combined with our global footprint in 58 markets give brands unprecedented ways to reach streaming consumers.”

    Spotify is leveraging all of its playlist data – based on more than 1.5 billion playlists – to provide advertisers with a glimpse into a user’s mood.

    “We leverage first-party data to identify user-generated and Spotify-curated playlists aligned with popular activities and moods. We create audience segments by identifying users that listen frequently to playlists in each category. We refresh segments daily based on new playlists, new users, and overall streaming activity,” says Spotify.

    Out of the gate, brands will be able to reach users based on a handful of activities and moods, signaled by playlists. These include workout, party, focus, commute, relax, travel, dining, and romance.

    So, a coffee brand could play an ad to a user on his/her way to work, or a cruise line could play an ad for someone in the “travel” mood.

    According to Ad Age, Spotify has been testing playlist targeting for a few months with eight brand partners.

    “This is not something that’s just randomly thrown out there. It’s a strategic evolution of the Spotify ads business going back a year and a half ago with the mobile licenses,” said Spotify’s VP-North America advertising and partnerships Brian Benedik.

    Playlist targeting will be available for brands at the start of next month, targeted to Spotify’s free-tier users. Earlier this week, Spotify began running a “tweet the beat” promotion, which basically amounts to an ad for all users – even those paying for premium.

    Image via Spotify

  • Here’s the Most Popular Sex Song, According to Spotify

    What’s the best song on Spotify for getting down to business?

    According to the streaming company, it’s Intro by The XX:

    Damn, that is a great song.

    How does Spotify know this? Apparently, the company combed through 2.5 million user-curated playlists made for “sex”. The Guardian has the gender breakdown on those sex playlists – and if you guessed that men are more likely to create one then you’re absolutely right (it’s a 56% to 44% margin).

    Here are the rest of the top Spotify sex songs … in a nice little playlist … just in time for Valentine’s Day …

    That XX song is awesome, but only about two minutes long. Luckily there are plenty of looped versions on YouTube – you know, if you really, really like it.

  • YouTube Launches Design Tweaks, Emphasizes Playlists

    YouTube announced a few design tweaks, which it says are designed to make it easer to find what you want to watch, and to collect playlists.

    The guide now contains all the playlists you’ve created as well as those you’ve liked from other channels. When you make a new one, there’s a new page for editing it. There’s also a new Playlists tab that lets you find playlists from channels you’re looking at.

    The new design has a more centered look, which is helps it fit “neatly” on any screen size, and keep a similar feel to the mobile apps. The company says, by the way, that people are spending roughly half of their YouTube time on the mobile apps.

    “You can quickly flip between what’s recommended and popular in ‘What to Watch’ like Postmodern Jukebox’s Timber, and the latest from your subscribed channels like iamOTHER in ‘My Subscriptions,’ with both options now front and center,” says YouTube’s Yining Zhao. “Click the guide icon to the right of the YouTube logo at any time to see your playlists, subscriptions and more. ”

    Early reaction to the changes is mixed, which is a lot better than certain other feature roll-outs of late.

    Images via YouTube

  • Here, Listen to the Bonnaroo 2014 Spotify Playlist

    If you’ve been a fixture on the Bonnaroo forums and reddit threads as of late, yesterday’s big lineup announcement (stylized as #BLAM) didn’t produce too many shockers–at least not in the upper echelon of acts.

    This year’s headliners include Elton John, Kanye West (2008’s pariah), Jack White, Lionel Ritchie (Hello?), and Vampire Weekend. Bonnaroo announced 100+ acts yesterday, and there are more to come. For the complete lineup as it stands, check here.

    But for now, per usual, the folks at Bonnaroo have prepared a Spotify playlist to help get you familiar with/re-familiarize yourself with all of the musicians coming to Manchester in June. It’s basically one popular track from each artist. Have a crack at it:

    Bonnaroo will kick off on June 12th and wind down on the 15th. If you can’t bear the 90ºF+ temperatures and sweaty campers, much of the festival will be streaming, live, on your Xbox.

    Image via Bonnaroo, YouTube

  • Some Guy Has More Than 90,000 Spotify Playlists

    Some Guy Has More Than 90,000 Spotify Playlists

    The best part about music streaming service Spotify releasing a bunch of stats is picking through to find the most interesting one. Back in October, on their 5th birthday, Spotify casually noted that 20% of the songs in their library have never been streamed. Ever. Sad, right?

    As 2013 comes to a close, Spotify has just released a year-in-review and my favorite little tidbit is this: Some dude in the US has over 90,000 playlists.

    And you thought you were obsessed.

    Other interesting figures include 4.5 billion total hours streamed in 2013, 1 billion playlists created so far, and 20,000 new songs added every single day.

    Globally, the most-streamed song of the year was Macklemore & Ryan Lewis’ “Can’t Hold Us.” In the US it was “Radioactive” by Imagine Dragons. Rihanna was the year’s most-streamed female artist.

    Here are the most-streamed songs of the year, in convenient playlist form:

    “Congratulations to Macklemore & Ryan Lewis who achieved incredible success in 2013, and to Rihanna who is again crowned the Queen of Pop. It’s also amazing to see young artists like Lorde, becoming sensations almost overnight, She’s a truly thrilling discovery for Spotify users and will help to re-shape the pop music landscape,” said Spotify head of content Steve Savoca.

    Spotify now boasts 24 million total users. You can check out their entire interactive year-in-review here.

    Image via Spotify

  • Spotify Sued Over User-Curated Playlists That Mimic Compilation Albums

    Does creating a playlist that mirrors an established company’s own playlists amount to infringement? Or more specifically, does allowing your users to create similar playlists and hosting them on your service make you liable?

    Streaming music service Spotify is being sued over a bunch of user-generated playlists. The plaintiffs, London-based EDM brand Ministry of Sound, claim that Spotify has a duty to remove playlists from their service that mimic the playlists put out by their compilations division.

    While Ministry of Sound has its own record label, the bulk of its business (and popularity) comes from its special compilations of dance music.

    “Unlike others [record labels], the largest part of our business comes from sales of compilation albums. We painstakingly create, compile and market our albums all over the world. We help music fans discover new genres, records and classic catalogues. Millions trust our brands, our taste and our selection. We give them great listening experiences at a good price,” says Ministry of Sound’s Lohan Presencer.

    “…But you won’t find our compilation albums on Spotify. Why not? Because its business model does not recognise that our products have any material value. It doesn’t consider them worth licensing. Which would be entirely its prerogative had our paths not crossed. But last year we noticed something on Spotify. Users of the service were copying our compilations. They were posting them as their own playlists and calling them “Ministry of Sound”. We assumed it was an oversight on Spotify’s part and contacted the company to request it remove the offending playlists. It declined, claiming there was no infringement and it wasn’t its responsibility to police its users.’

    Presencer says that this is a true “David vs Goliath battle.”

    Of course, Spotify has all the rights to stream all of the songs on these compilations – but it’s the actual compilations that Ministry of Sound feels are protected.

    “What we do is a lot more than putting playlists together: a lot of research goes into creating our compilation albums, and the intellectual property involved in that. It’s not appropriate for someone to just cut and paste them,” says Presencer.

    And that’s exactly what you’ll find if you do a search on Spotify for “Ministry of Sound” – dozens of user-curated playlists that are “cut and pasted” in the same way as some of the company’s famous compilations.

    Can you really claim that playlists are protected as IP, even if the songs on the playlists don’t come from your record label? Ministry of Sound thinks so, and it will be a question for the courts. Spotify has acknowledged the lawsuit, but has yet to comment.

    Image via Spotify

  • Spotify Launches New Browse Tool for Curated Playlists

    Spotify Launches New Browse Tool for Curated Playlists

    Spotify is continuing to focus heavily on music discovery with today’s rollout of a new “Browse” feature, coming inside an app update later today.

    Browse lets Spotify users find curated playlists based on certain categories or “moods.”

    Music for every moment: We’ve got just the right tunes for your morning commute, the party tonight, and the hangover tomorrow. Music for every mood: More than just genres, listen to a playlist for romance or a collection of face melting guitarists.

    Spotify’s new Browse feature comes on the heels of their Discovery feature, which uses Spotify’s algorithms to recommend songs and artists based on what you’ve been listening to. The difference between the two is that the new Browse feature adds a human element, with playlists hand-curated by the folks at Spotify.

    “We don’t rely on one source for recommendations in real life – and music discovery can’t be one-dimensional,” said Gustav Söderström, Chief Product Officer, at Spotify. “Our three-dimensional approach now combines the human touch with strong social features and unique technology from over five years of experience. We know music and we’re the first to marry all three aspects in one service, making it easier than ever for users to navigate the treasure trove of content within Spotify.”

    Recent analysis suggested that streaming music subscriptions will rise to 29 million this year, and could hit 191 million by the year 2018. Spotify currently leads the pack, but if it’s going to hold on to its crown it’ll need to compete with other services that put an emphasis on discovery. With this new feature, the company is doing just that.

    You can expect the new Browse tool to hit iOS and Android first, and eventually roll out to all platforms.

  • YouTube Tests New Auto-Generated Playlist of 50 Related Videos

    YouTube is currently testing a new feature called “YouTube Mix,” which is an auto-generated playlist of up to 50 related videos located in the right-hand suggested videos section.

    Once clicked, the YouTube mix continuously plays 50 videos that YouTube’s algorithms have determined you may like based on what you’re currently watching. Of course, YouTube has been suggesting related videos in the sidebar for years, but the new Mix option lets you cycle through 50 related videos without having to click around and find them on that sidebar.

    Once you load up the YouTube Mix, you can sit back and enjoy all 50 videos in the randomly-generated order. Or, you can skip around or shuffle the videos, as you can with any other hand-curated YouTube playlist.

    YouTube confirms to The Next Web that the new Mix playlist will simply generate another 50 related videos, if you happen to run out of things to watch.

    Of course, YouTube Mix is simply another tool your YouTubers to use to find new content that they may have otherwise never stumbled upon. It falls in line with other recent efforts made by YouTube to better highlight content from the sites creators. Last week, YouTube announced an update to the homepage that will increase the video visibility in the channel stream.

  • YouTube’s Valentine’s Day Playlists Speak to the In-Love, Broken-Hearted, and Misanthropic

    Working on the theory that you either really hate Valentine’s Day or you really love Valentine’s Day (there is no middle here), YouTube has put together a bunch of Valentine’s Day playlists featuring videos that will make you feel gushy and romantic or will help you wallow in misery – whichever is your thing this year.

    According to YouTube, the lists were hand-picked with the help of Trends Manager Kevin Allocca.

    YouTube has six new Valentine’s Day playlists this year: most-viewed marriage proposals, cheesiest love songs of all time, science of love, marriage proposal fails, broken-hearted-yet-defiant-love-songs, and bad pickup lines.

    In all, there are 69 videos spread out across the playlists (good one, YouTube).

    You’ll see painful rejections like this:

    And insane proposals like this:

    And even find some solace in old breakup classics like:

    You can check out all the playlists here.

    I feel good about V-Day this year. I think I’ll go listen to some cheesy love songs.

  • The New YouTube App Is Actually Pretty Awesome

    Google announced some big improvements to the YouTube API during I/O that will help Android devices get the most out of the service with smooth, high-quality playback. Those kind of improvements usually result in a new app being released sooner or later. It’s more sooner than later with Google releasing a new YouTube app today.

    The new YouTube app for Android released today is pretty much all about one thing – your subscriptions. Everybody on YouTube has subscriptions, it’s what drives us to our favorite content and keeps us on top of the new content being released by our favorite creators. The new Android app is following the Web site redesign from last year to bring those subscriptions to the core of the experience.

    The front page of the YouTube app can now be swiped to the left to reveal a bar that features all of your subscriptions. It’s just like how your subscriptions are listed on the left-hand side of the screen on the desktop version of YouTube. It’s extremely useful especially when YouTube recommendations lets one of your favorite creators’ new video slip by.

    The best addition to the YouTube app is the ability to prefetch the video while you’re on a Wi-Fi connection. While your phone is charging and connected to Wi-Fi, it will grab and prefetch videos from your subscribed channels for storage in a local cache. When you go to watch said videos while on mobile data, it will have the video already pre-loaded for your viewing pleasure.

    The desktop and mobile experience on YouTube are now connected on an intimate level. The videos that you like, favorite and share on an Android phone will be reflected on the desktop version under your account. The description also makes it appear that you’ll be able to queue up the next video from your phone without having to interrupt the current video that’s playing on the desktop.

    The new YouTube app is only available on Android 4.0 devices for now, but it will be rolled out to other versions of Android in the future. You can grab it from Google Play.

  • YouTube API Gets Better Playlist Support

    YouTube API Gets Better Playlist Support

    Back in March, YouTube launched a new feature for the YouTube API that would allow people to include lists of videos in the player. It was great since it let users watch a continuous stream of content without ever leaving the embedded video player. The only problem is that the playlist wasn’t readily available to the user at all times.

    Google is rectifying that today with the latest update to the YouTube API. With a little HTML magic, users can now insert a parameter, showinfo=1, into the iframe. After that, clicking on the playlists button will bring up the playlists and they will remain permanently visible.

    If you are unaware of the playlists feature, clicking on the button brings up a miniature sliding bar with all the videos currently in that playlist. Each slide has six videos on it with an arrow navigation tool to sift through the videos until you find one that you must watch next. It’s seamlessly integrated into the embedded video so that it only appears when you move the mouse over the video.

    Here’s the example video from a recent Google Maps API Hangout that takes advantage of the new playlists feature. Play around with the playlist feature for a bit to see the improvements. YouTube API developers should appreciate how embedded videos now replicate more of the experience of watching a YouTube video on the site proper.

    As always, check out the documentation to see more examples and ways to implement the new feature. It should have everything you need to know to get playlists up and running on your Web site or mobile application.

  • Rock N’ Roll Really Does Heal Your Soul!!

    Rock N’ Roll Really Does Heal Your Soul!!

    When I was younger I was obsessed with music and the people who created and performed it. I would read interviews from anybody who wanted to comment on how to perform and compose. I was fascinated by where the energy and inspiration came from.

    One particular interview I remember reading was with now former Van Halen singer, Sammy Hagar. He said, for him rock n’roll was like a doctor and when he would have a cold or the flu or something on the road, he could still perform. That first chord was all he needed to hear to get him pumped-up and forgetting about all the things that were dragging him down whether it was a cold or the flu, or just life itself. That quote really resonated with me and it still does.

    I believe in the therapeutic nature of music and its ability to change our moods, alter our perceptions, and lift us up when we’re feeling down. Well now there’s a new book out that speaks right to that phenomenon. It’s a book that will have others like me thinking they should have written about it before now.

    “Your Playlist Can Change Your Life: 10 Proven Ways Your Favorite Music Can Revolutionize Your Health, Memory, Organization, Alertness and More”, is a new publication by Joseph Cardillo, Don DuRousseau, and Galina Mindlin that speaks right to what I was talking about above.

    More specifically, the book addresses the issue of our playlists and the interaction they have with the emotions. It’s like a step by step guide for strategically designing playlists that can enhance our performance on various tasks throughout the day. Whether it’s getting more restful sleep or finding more energy to shake-off the mid afternoon grogginess that challenges us to get excited about our work, the authors say music can help.

    I think this book is a must read for any music fan. Let’s see what people on Twitter are saying about the text:

    (image)@jonmarcbauer
    Jon Bauer    ‘This is why I listen to #Slayer all day, every day. Your Playlist Can Change Your Life’: Can music boost your brain? http://t.co/KTMjBpNS(image) 1 hour ago via TweetDeck ·  Reply ·  Retweet ·  Favorite · powered by @socialditto

    (image)@PacktLib
    PacktLib    Turn the music up! ‘Your Playlist Can Change Your Life’: Can music boost your brain? http://t.co/gB5Anp0J(image) 6 hours ago via Tweet Button ·  Reply ·  Retweet ·  Favorite · powered by @socialditto

    (image)@MigMacario
    Mig Macario    I KNEW IT!!! – ‘Your Playlist Can Change Your Life’: Can music boost your brain? http://t.co/yGEUjLdH(image) 9 hours ago via Tweet Button ·  Reply ·  Retweet ·  Favorite · powered by @socialditto

    (image)@mordenenough
    Marlee Morden    Music + FLOW! Cool read: ‘Your Playlist Can Change Your Life’: Can music boost your brain? http://t.co/847onUJO(image) 14 hours ago via Tweet Button ·  Reply ·  Retweet ·  Favorite · powered by @socialditto

    (image)@neurofitnow
    Dee O’Neill, MS, LPC    More reason to enjoy music…’Your Playlist Can Change Your Life’: Can music boost your brain? http://t.co/hCEgMatR(image) 7 days ago via Tweet Button ·  Reply ·  Retweet ·  Favorite · powered by @socialditto

    (image)@PlayListGen
    PlaylistGen    What we knew all along: YOUR PLAYLIST CAN CHANGE YOUR LIFE. http://t.co/iD5emclM(image) 6 days ago via Facebook ·  Reply ·  Retweet ·  Favorite · powered by @socialditto

    (image)@eddyvdbroeck
    eddy Van den Broeck    Dopamine rush….’Your Playlist Can Change Your Life’: Can music boost your brain? http://t.co/oYGeMile(image) 6 hours ago via Tweet Button ·  Reply ·  Retweet ·  Favorite · powered by @socialditto

    (image)@charbeckwith
    charlotte beckwith    this is a fact, not a question #musicislove – ‘Your Playlist Can Change Your Life’: Can music boost your brain? http://t.co/zxjCfkXg(image) 4 days ago via Tweet Button ·  Reply ·  Retweet ·  Favorite · powered by @socialditto

    I knew people would be excited about it. I can’t wait to read the book. I don’t think there will be any surprises for me, but it’s still worth reading. Hopefully many others will do the same.