Spotify: social side and playlist for a class project

[JuliMlnr]

Hey!

We have a project at university where we have to look into how spotify is a social media app, what it missing to have more of a community? what would you guys say? 

We also created a playlist, just a bunch of songs we saw people share, completely random, check it out if you are interested.  https://open.spotify.com/playlist/2O0toBvEKYEmI40uNkPnAY

Thanks, it means a lot is you answer

[AdamDamon]

I think that the “Friend Activity” sidebar is a great way to see what music your friends are playing, and is the main reason that I think Spotify has social features. However, there are some features of Last.fm that I think would be great if Spotify emulates, in order to make it more social and more like a community:

• Musical neighbors – On Last.fm, there is a link on your profile to your “musical neighbors” – other users who listen to a lot of the same artists as yourself – so you can see who else likes the same bands as you. I think this tool could help Spotify users find likeminded listeners.

• Musical compatibility scores among Spotify users – On Last.fm, you can click on any user’s profile and it tells you your musical compatibility with them (from “Very Low” to “Super”), based on which artists you both listen to a lot. I think that this tool could help users decide if they want to follow others on Spotify.

• View top listeners for an artist – On Last.fm, you can click on any artist, and it shows a list of users who listen to the artist the most. I think this tool could also help Spotify users find likeminded listeners.

I also think that this idea would make Spotify more social:

• View playlist followers – I think it would be great if Spotify users could see who is following their playlists, in order to potentially find likeminded listeners and in order to help know whose playlists to follow (if you’d like to follow your followers’ playlists).

[JuliMlnr]

Ah, thanks a lot. We were similarly actually. One question about seeing what your friends are listening to, isn't it bothering that they see everything you listen to? It's not you decision to show them, hey I like this song, it just shows what you listen to and that's it.

We were also considering how spotify could show if someone has a similar playlist as yours. Everyone listens to playlist either made by spotify or themselves, it's usually not someone else's. So when creating a playlist spotify could show other people's list which is similar maybe with a percentage number of how much is it really similar. 

[AdamDamon]

Yeah, I can see how it could be bothersome for some users to know that their followers see what they're listening to. It actually doesn't bother me too much, since I'm usually hoping that my friends who follow me will try listening to the music that I'm listening to (that they see on the Friend Activity sidebar) and maybe enjoy it. However, if I'm listening to the same song over and over again (as happens sometimes when I'm trying to decide if I should put it in a playlist), then I usually use Private Session, so my friends don't think I'm obsessed with that song lol. I imagine other users also use Private Session in this case, or when they're just trying out new artists that they don't know if they will like or not and therefore don't wish to broadcast that they're listening to that artist (I also use Private Session in this case as well).

That's a great idea; I would also like it if Spotify could tell users about playlists by other users that are similar to their own. I think that it would really facilitate the discovery of new music through discovering and browsing other users' public playlists.

[Sebasty]

I am presonally not bothered. There's only a couple of people among the followers that know who I am in person and know I listen to.. weird things. I don't go by my real name online either, which is pretty useful - Here's the Spotify user listening to weird things.

Spotify allows users to turn off the "share listening activity on Spotify" feature anyway, so this would apply on the pretty cool last.fm-borrowed ideas too. :')

The can also hide recently played artists. I have seen profiles that appear empty (everything disabled and private) and I know the user is active.