Music Ally

Spotify has been lauded ever since it first launched for the simplicity and slickness of its user interface. Its desktop client is stripped down and easy to use, and even the more complex features like collaborative playlists are idiot-proof. It just works.

Yet in early 2010, questions are being asked about whether it works well enough, which is healthy for music fans, the music industry and for Spotify itself. The company hardly rested on its laurels in 2009, but attention is turning to what it needs to do now to improve and compete with the new breed of ‘post-Spotify’ music services that will spring up this year.

(Sorry for saying ‘post-Spotify’ – it’s a bit pseudy).

Specifically, the areas where Spotify is ripe for improvement are in its social aspects, and its discovery and recommendations features.

Right from the start, CEO Daniel Ek said that the company hoped that its API would encourage other people to create social services around Spotify, rather than the company itself building a community. It provided the ability to create playlists, but left it to external developers to build sites for people to share and discover them.

Meanwhile, Spotify has never been the best service for discovering music. It does the on-demand thing brilliantly, but its radio service hasn’t picked up much traction, while its low-profile ‘you might like these artists’ recommendations aren’t that useful.

None of this is news to Spotify, and it’s already working on both issues. This morning it kicked off a revamp of its discovery features with a new Related Artists tab, to replace its existing recommendation system. It’s just the start, apparently.

Meanwhile, Ek has also talked about the company’s determination to improve its social features in the coming months, building on the work done by outside developers.

There’s always been a philosophical separation between on-demand and online radio music services – likely spawning from licensing requirements that led companies to plump for one or the other.

However, what Spotify has realised is that music fans often want both. Sometimes we know exactly what album they want to listen to, but sometimes we want to be pointed in the direction of stuff they might like. Sometimes we pull, and sometimes we want to be pushed stuff.

I’ve been playing with US firm MOG’s new subscription music service in the last week, which is a genuinely coherent attempt to bridge the gap – allowing users to flick between the two modes at will. Rdio, the still-stealthy online music startup from the founders of Skype and Kazaa, may also help take things forward.

Meanwhile, existing streaming services like MySpace Music and we7 are also not standing still in trying to weld social features and recommendations to on-demand music. Grizzled veterans of the scene, like Last.fm, may well be raising eyebrows at all this being presented as a new trend, of course.

In 2009, Spotify set a new quality bar for the delivery of streaming music. In 2010, that bar will be vaulted by the company itself, and several of its rivals. Breaking down the walls between on-demand streaming and personalised, social radio services can only be a good thing for consumers and the industry alike.

Tags: spotify

This entry was posted on Wednesday, February 3rd, 2010 at 5:40 pm and is filed under Digital Music Strategy. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.