I have been a user of Spotify Premium, the paid version of the streaming service Spotify, for more than three years now. Over the years, Spotify has always impressed me about what they have to offer their users based on the data they give Spotify. Last week, Spotify released their “2017wrapped” service. When you click on the website 2017wrapped.com and sign in to your Spotify account, you are provided with a slew of insights about your usage of the service over the past year. After presenting you with all of your note worthy data, such as how many songs you skipped, number of unique songs and artists you listened to, and much more, they present you an image of insights that you can share and compare with friends. My insights are attached below. After that, you can go in app to find two playlist generated by Spotify: “Your Top 2017”, your top 100 songs of the year, and “The Ones That Got Away”, songs similar to those you listen to from 2017 that you haven’t heard. This isn’t the first time Spotify has done these special insights. As the cited Forbes’ article notes, Discover Weekly, a weekly playlist of thirty new songs built based on your listening history, has been around for a few years now and has become extremely popular. Spotify has proven that insights based on data can be very entertaining and gratifying for users, and at least for me, has boosted my loyalty to their service. What could other companies learn from Spotify about using all their data? Or what can other companies do to present their data in a way that is meaningful to consumers?
https://www.forbes.com/sites/bernardmarr/2017/10/30/the-amazing-ways-spotify-uses-big-data-ai-and-machine-learning-to-drive-business-success/#26b26b04bd2f
I am a Spotify Premium subscriber, and was very entertained to see my data from the past year. I have never once been disappointed with Spotify as a company, and this just another example of how they make things fun for the user. A past example includes taking a quiz to find out what playlist you are according to which Game of Thrones character you are. They find new and creative ways to gain insights into who their customers are and what they want. They did this not too long ago with the Spotify/Hulu package they offered. I find the “wrap-up” results here very fun, and I don’t exactly understand why they aren’t as satisfying when it comes to Facebook’s “Year in Review” or other sites that try to use analytics to improve the customer experience. Perhaps because Spotify offers the data, as well as other things to look into that the customer would like based on what they’ve already listened to, which we see in their “The Ones That Got Away” playlist.
I am also a premium subscriber of Spotify. I think my favorite feature of Spotify’s services is their playlists that they curate specifically for each user. My favorite is their discover weekly playlist that updates once a week. Based on the music I search for and listen to, Spotify finds songs that I’ve never listened to, by artists I’ve never heard of, and most of the playlist is something I like and end up saving. I would say that I have become much more loyal to Spotify than I have to any other music distributer. This is probably mostly because of how cheap it is and how easy it makes it to find new and interesting music.
Although it is pretty cool to see that Spotify saves your stats about your listening activity at the end of each year, how do we know that is all that this data is being used for? In the terms and conditions statement that most people don’t read, it has a clause that allows Spotify to use their information as they see fit and most likely sell your data to other companies. This fact means that companies will target you specifically with their advertisements about upcoming concerts and new music albums that are about to hit the shelves. Even though these ads are tailored to your likes, it is another additional company that has data about your virtual identity. It is one of the many ways in this technological age where privacy is quickly disappearing. A result of this targeted advertising may result in emails you never signed up for reaching your inbox, just because you signed up to stream music.
Music for everyone. (n.d.). Retrieved December 10, 2017, from https://www.spotify.com/us/legal/privacy-policy/
I am also a premium subscriber for Spotify and I genuinely enjoy this feature. I like how it incorporates all my moods of 2017 into one playlist. This article quotes that Ed Sheeran was the most streamed artist globally and Rhianna was the most streamed female artist of the year. I find this fascinating because it is able to draw insights from this data and not just let a year’s worth of data go to waste. This app has given millions the opportunity to listen to their favorite songs whenever wherever.
Other companies like Facebook have tried to adapt to this “Year Wrap Up” model but it has not been as satisfying as the results from Spotify. Facebook only highlights a few pictures from your year, whereas Spotify includes the songs you loved every single month of the year. Maybe Facebook could better this model by including a status or a few pictures from every month of the user’s year, instead of just a few moments.
https://techcrunch.com/2017/12/04/spotifys-wrapped-feature-is-now-live-to-break-down-your-2017-listening-habits/
Spotify’s feature to provide suggestions to its users based on their playlists is one that can help simplify our lives. Many companies can benefit by implementing this feature into their products or services. In instances where there are too many options for the users it would be helpful to provide users suggestions based on their tastes.Netflix also makes use of a similar feature to that of Spotify by providing suggestions to its users. If data like this is presented to the user it benefits the user as well as he will be able to track how much music he listens to and what his favourite songs are or were in the past in case they have forgotten. Other businesses like Netflix could also implement a way to display facts such as how long users have spent on each show and how many people are watching each show and other such facts. By doing this Netflix users will also benefit and can also increase their customer loyalty.