Spotify is the most popular streaming music service around, with over 100 million active monthly users, and the developers continue to improve the app even further by frequently adding new useful features. Recently, Spotify added a new feature called Discover Weekly, which learns from your listening habits, and compiles a weekly playlist of music you are likely to enjoy. Now, the company is adding a new similar feature, which updates its list of tracks every day.
Daily Mix, like Discover Weekly, also builds playlists based on user history, but it does some things a bit differently as well. Each day, the app will offer anywhere from one to six playlists, the exact number being determined by the variety of the user’s tastes and recent listening habits. Daily Mixes are not made up of songs that follow one specific genre of music, but rather a combination of different styles that the user enjoys, and as the playlist progresses, songs transition between genres in a natural way. Rather than giving the playlists names that summarize the contents within them, they are represented by an image that shows album covers of some of the songs in the list, with artist names below. This was ultimately done to keep music from being mislabeled by grouping into a playlist that it doesn’t fit well in, or excluding tracks because they don’t suit the theme of a given playlist. According to Matt Ogle, a member of the development team, “We found that the mixes were much better received when we leaned back and let people describe them themselves.” Unlike Discover Weekly, the Daily Mix content will not be entirely new every day. In some cases, it may contain a lot of the same tracks in a different order, or one playlist may replace another one while the others remain mostly the same. In comparison to Discover Weekly, many of the changes to the Daily Mix content are gradual from day to day, giving it a consistent feel while at the same time not playing the same songs in the same order day after day.
One of the reasons that Spotify has become such a popular service may be its ability to provide users with valuable features that improve the overall listening experience, which the company has done quite well. Aside from being the leader in mobile streaming, they also have over 40 million subscribers that have chosen their premium tier of service over the free one. While some artists are not happy with the music subscription-based business model, it seems to be quickly taking over, replacing methods such as physical media and digital album and track sales. If you haven’t used Spotify before, and would like to check out this new feature, as well as everything else the app has to offer, head on over to the Google Play Store via the link below.