How Spotify Finds the Perfect Playlists and "The Soundtrack of Your Life"

Spotify is a music streaming service that has won the hearts of millions of people around the world, and in July 2020 appeared in Russia. The company's tough road to success is highlighted in Against the Giants: How Spotify Pushed Apple and Changed the Music Industry, published in September by Alpina Publisher. Lifehacker publishes a snippet from chapter 16.

In the spring of 2015, the notorious "winter" is no longer just close, but knocking on the door. Competitors are advancing on all fronts. Amazon and Google are creating streaming services. Tidal's user base is still far from over a million, but the company's strong ties to celebrity artists are cause for constant concern. The biggest threat comes from Tim Cook and Jimmy Iovine: an updated iTunes is coming soon. Apple Music Store already has about 800 million customers, and most have entrusted them with their credit card details. By comparison, Spotify has about 20 million subscribers.

However, Apple's ties to record corporations are increasingly gaining scrutiny. Four years after the dramatic period leading up to the launch of Spotify in the US, the American tech giant is suspected of opposing the entry of companies offering free music streaming. In April 2015, an alliance between Apple and record companies to counter the proliferation of free streaming is being discussed in the EU. This information comes a few weeks before the relaunch of Beats Music. According to the IT-site The Verge, the Federal Trade Commission of the US Department of Justice also begins to monitor Apple's activities.

But Daniel Eck wants to beat the competition technologically. He thinks about finding music that is suitable not only for every moment, but also for every emotional state. Spotify's tips for what music to listen to will be based on the user's mood.

“We will notice that you are driving to work faster than usual. And then we will put on the appropriate track for you,”says Daniel Ek in the spring of 2015 to investors who came to the office on Birger-Jarlsgatan.

But to do this, Spotify needs to know where the customer is and how they are moving - whether they are standing, walking or running. The world is already obsessed with big data, big data, and by 2015, Spotify is collecting significantly more user data than before. This is a controversial approach, but Daniel Eck is well aware of how important it is to know a lot about your own customers. Data collection is becoming part of a massive innovation - it will be announced a few weeks before the launch of Apple's new music streaming. The authors of the new idea are Daniel Ek and Gustav Söderström. The public will be presented with a completely new way of using Spotify, and executives are realizing the stakes are high.

“This is a kind of 'die but do',” says Gustav Söderström to his colleagues on the eve of the big start.

You don’t know me

The transformation that will make Spotify a unique service is called Moments. The main idea is that the application should accompany the user through life, offering appropriate music for a party, workout or dinner with friends. Deep Sleep playlists and an extended range of podcasts allow you to stay close to your listeners almost 24 hours a day. The user listens to the right music at the right time and in the right place. Anyone on vacation in Los Angeles will probably be delighted to hear Going Back to Cali performed by The Notorious B. I. G.

For this feature to work, Spotify asks users for their GPS coordinates.

Then the updated Spotify will be able to read the user's musical tastes - wherever he is, at any time of the day. The music will start playing instantly as soon as the user opens the app.

Gustav Söderström (a big gym fan) and his team create the Spotify Running program. The Stockholm office has a laboratory research room. In the center, one of the employees works out on a treadmill wearing headphones. Colleagues are standing nearby, measuring how quickly the software adjusts the musical rhythm to the tempo in which the "subject" moves his feet on a rubber band. The product is being developed in collaboration with Nike and provides access to sensors on the client's phone or tablet.

Moments is both Spotify's answer to Beats Music and a way to protect yourself from potential maneuvers by Apple and Beats. And the developers are also trying to integrate new footage into the Spotify app. Shiva Rajaraman, who just a few months ago was forced to close the TV project, licensed TV content from the United States and Sweden. It will become part of the updated version.

With these ambitious goals in mind, Spotify is seeking additional funding. The goal is to double the value of the company - to about $ 8 billion.

Dancing Machine

While Spotify executives are preparing the launch of Moments, the highly professional programmers in the New York office on 18th Street have little work. They used to work on the algorithms behind the recommendations for Spotify listeners. Take, for example, the Discover tab, which allows you to find new tracks and albums. But since the second half of 2014, the responsibilities of New Yorkers have suddenly shrunk. Most of the products are now developed in Boston by employees of Echo Nest, a recent Spotify acquisition. The developers specialize in machine learning. Most of them have PhDs, and some were in science. Some of them will later go to work at Amazon and DeepMind, Google's artificial intelligence division.

Towards the end of 2014, two taciturn American programmers, Edward Newett and Chris Johnson, are starting to develop an old idea. Previously, they discussed with colleagues whether it would be possible to combine the usual recommendations for a playlist into "packages". Now they are testing which method is capable of producing the perfect playlist, tailored exactly to the user's tastes. Programmers have several such methods. One is based on the search for users with a similar history of requests, that is, we are talking about analyzing huge amounts of data. A similar method is used by Netflix for TV shows and films, and Amazon - in general for any goods. Another method is to analyze sound files in order to find music with similar tempo, structure and rhythm.

However, the third method shows the best results. The engine is fed data from approximately 1.5 billion playlists created by Spotify users. Most of these playlists are composed of tracks that go together. The listeners have already made a choice - and the machine simply "cleans" it and produces an amazing result.

Programmers believe that such playlists are just perfectly arranged. But verification is needed. Edward Newett and Chris Johnson are asking for internal testing of the method on Spotify employees. New chef Matthew Ogle puts the playlist at the top of the overall list. The effect is not long in coming.

“It was as if my musical double composed it. Everything is just fine,”writes one of the participants in the experiment.

Designers are connected to the team of programmers. It is assumed that the playlist - a kind of personal mix - will be updated every week. The volume is reduced from 100 tracks to 30, which corresponds to two hours of sound.

The automated playlist is called Discover Weekly. To make sure the method works, Edward Newett and Chris Johnson want to test it on real Spotify users, starting with several hundred thousand. But they fail to attract the attention of top management. Gustav Söderström is completely absorbed in the Moments update. The promising playlist will have to wait.

Moment 4 Life

In the spring of 2015, it was rumored that Apple was cutting the cost of music streaming. Jimmy Iovine and his team intend to sell the service for $ 5 a month.

But a few weeks before the launch, the business press reports that a compromise has been reached with the record companies and the fee will be $ 8 a month. For Daniel Eck, this figure means additional losses.

Apple is about a month away from launch. Spotify CEO takes the stage of a former Manhattan warehouse. He is wearing dark jeans and a blue T-shirt with a guitar print.

“We at Spotify have a deeper, richer and more immersive experience for you,” he says in English.

This is the smartest launch. Huge screens showcase the features of the new app. Neon rays run across the ceiling and floor of a darkened room. The time has come for Spotify to fully live up to its “Music for Every Moment” slogan.

So, the Spotify boss explains, not only are playlists based on music genres taken into account, but also the specific moment, the specific circumstances in which the music should sound. The engines of this process are the company's music editors.

- Of course, we analyze the data to determine what the listeners like. But another key to our success is talented music experts who help to create playlists for our listeners, says Daniel Ek.

The line is a response to Beats' long-standing hairpin about "Swedish robots" who supposedly pick up music for Spotify users. Workout, party, and video game playlists are curated by editors.

After the presentation, Gustav Söderström said in an interview with Wired that Spotify is going to fill the entire waking time of listeners with music: "I would like our user to turn Spotify on in the morning and not turn it off until he falls asleep."

The new offer is not limited to music. Users will soon have access to podcasts and videos from ESPN, MTV and the new VICE News. Several Swedish media corporations are also joining the cooperation. According to two reliable sources, the copyright and necessary licenses cost Spotify more than 400 million crowns.

New features require access to large amounts of user data. But Daniel Ek will report this only a few months after the big presentation in Manhattan. By this time, he will have time to study Apple Music.

Release me

Monday 8 June 2015 It has been two weeks since Daniel Ek presented the updated Spotify. On stage in San Francisco, the public's curiosity is fueled by Tim Cook.

“We have something else,” he says the famous phrase that was the hallmark of Steve Jobs. The audience is jubilant. Tim Cook shows a richly filmed film about the history of music recording. A nineteenth-century gramophone record turns on the screen into a radio, vinyl record player, reel-to-reel, cassette recorder, and finally into an iPod and iPhone. The film ends with the Apple Music logo and the date: 2015. Tim Cook invites a new performer to the stage, introducing him as the person who "knows about music and its perception" more than anyone else in the world:

- He worked with amazing artists, including Bruce Springsteen, John Lennon and many others. We're delighted to have him on the Apple team. Let's greet Jimmy Iovine together!

The Beats founder takes the stage. He is wearing a black jacket, jeans and sneakers.

“Thanks,” he says. On a gray T-shirt with a print of the Statue of Liberty.

Jimmy Iovine talks about his involvement in Apple's fight against music piracy before iTunes launched in 2003. Now he hopes to change the music industry again. The public is shown another film, this time about Apple Music. Shots flicker: concerts, DJ performances, young people buried in mobile phones …

“We need a place where music will be treated not as bits of information, but as the art that it is. Respectfully, with joy of discovery, - says an invisible voice. The voice, it turns out, belongs to Trent Reznor, who suddenly appears on the screen.

“This is what Apple Music and I are striving for,” he continues.

Apple Music offers a complete music catalog, specially assembled playlists and recommendations. The service also includes a new radio station, Beats One. She works around the clock, and at the console - the star DJs of Los Angeles, New York and London. A social network called Connect is becoming the heart of Apple Music - artists will share remixes, photos, lyrics and more with fans.

So Apple has its own social channel. The service costs $ 10 per month, and the free trial period is three months. As a result, there seems to be no decline in the market value of streaming.

“Apple Music will put the right track from the right playlist at the right time,” says Jimmy Iovine.

Spotify's Stockholm office listens closely to the presentation. We have been preparing for this for several years. Someone notes that Apple does not have a free subscription at all. Someone points out that at the moment the bulk of Tim Cook's streaming revenue comes from Spotify, as he earns 30% of Spotify's App Store sales. The presentation is not over yet, and Daniel Eck is already writing a discreet review on Twitter.

“Oh ok,” appears on his page, and before Danielle deletes this post, it will fly in thousands of retweets.

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To create the book “Against the Giants. How Spotify Pushed Apple and Changed the Music Industry”journalists Sven Carlson and Yunas Leijonhufwood conducted a whole investigation. They spoke to Spotify executives, investors and music industry figures, and the company's competitors. The result is a fascinating story, from the birth of the idea to the moment when Spotify became the number 1 streaming service in the world. And co-founder of the company Daniel Ek believes that they are only at the beginning of the journey.