Spooky Spotify

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It might suprise you to know that I've had quite a bit of spare time on my hands lately. I've done a few jobs around the house and kept involved in freemasonry in West Wales and beyond. I've enjoyed creating blog posts amd hopefully some of them have amused and entertained people. In an act of supreme generosity I have given up my office so that my son can carry on his work placement with gobal power company Eaton (I hadn't heard of them either). 

This leaves me sharing a work space with my wife Helen who works for Pembrokeshire County Council and who is working from home. This arrangement is not quite as romantic as you might think, especially as she insists on having Radio 2 on all day. I prefer to work in silence, so that I can concentrate on what I'm doing, but sadly that hasn't been one of the choices 😊.

I can't block out Radio 2 by listening to my beloved Radio 4 on my headphones, because I really can't concentrate then, which has led me to relent and subscribe to Spotify. I did dabble with YouTube Music first, but that didn't do anything for me. One of the reasons I have been reluctant to subscribe is just the scariness of being to listen absolutely any song ever written. As it turns out, this isn't a problem because spotify knows what music I like and only plays me the good stuff. It's so spooky that I looked into how it knows - it really is amazing. I found this article which you might like to read in full, in which case follow the link below (it's fascinating), but I have picked out a few of the highlights too.

How Spotify’s Algorithm Knows Exactly What You Want to Listen To

Spotify is doing everything it can to get you to listen to more music.

The company has created algorithms to govern everything from your personal best home screen to curated playlists like Discover Weekly, and continues to experiment with new ways to understand music, and why people listen to one song or genre over another.

While competitors like Apple Music, Amazon Prime Music, and Google Music rely on a mix of paid humans and community-created playlists, Spotify’s main differentiating factor is the level of customization and expansion of music knowledge offered to customers. Spotify needs to continue building out these algorithms because it’s the only way to create custom listening experiences for each of its over 200 million users. As Spotify grows its business, that differentiating factor needs to be a compelling reason to subscribe to the service.

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