Society & Culture
In order to improve its product capabilities, Spotify has made several strategic acquisitions since 2014. None were more important than the purchase of Echo Nest, a data-analytics startup that revolutionized the way music recommendations were generated by mixing the best strategies used by other services, creating a unique nederlandse spotify maandelijkse luisteraars kopen discovery engine that has increased Spotify’s differentiation.
Given the limited content exclusivity (most platforms have licenses for the same song catalogs) and non-existent overlap in subscriber bases, user experience and technology are critical differentiating factors among streaming services. Using machine learning, Spotify has created a virtuous circle in which increased user engagement and scale drive larger data sets, data in turn drives improved recommendations and discovery and, finally, discovery drives differentiation. Today, across both its curated and machine generated playlists such as Discover Weekly and Rap Caviar, Spotify recommended over 30% of overall listening in 2017, up from less than 20% in 2015, providing a highly personalized listening experience.
The company has successfully differentiated itself from other streaming platforms by using machine learning to fuel its superior music discovery and recommendation algorithms. The ever-increasing proportion of music that is recommended to consumers has implications beyond simply improving the user experience: it is helping shift the balance of power in the music industry from traditional record labels to distribution platforms.