Audio Discovery

Over the past few years, I went from having hardly explored the music world to spending a seriously significant portion of my day “plugged in” – consuming some sort of audio content. I think that comes from gaining more autonomy and independence – spending more time “alone.”

But was I really alone? Not with music here. Not with podcasts or audio books around. They saved me from my own wandering mind and gave me something to latch on. They accompanied the tiny voice in my head.  

Whether that be podcasts or trap music or some weird variation of concepts, I have never been so excited about the future of audio.

This essay focuses on a particular feature of a particular product that I really like. I have written about how much I enjoy podcasts in the past – bites of curiosity that help me dive into new concepts and ideas.

In this essay, I just want to bring attention to how awesome I think Spotify is – and how unbelievably amazing their Song Radio product works. 

Spotify Radio picks the music for you, so you can sit back and listen to the music you love.

Create a Radio station with any song, album, artist, or playlist, and Spotify will play music based on that. 


Source

In the past few months alone, I have discovered hundreds of songs that match and expand my tastes – all from this one feature! It truly is great. 

My question…

How did this happen in the past? I literally do not know how someone would discover or find music without a feature like Spotify?

Would they read forums? Was it all based off of what your friends were listening to?

Discovery – in any industry – is a fascinating challenge. IMO Spotify nails it. I wonder, though, how other audio-files will roll out similarly valuable types of features. 

In particular, who will solve the problem of podcast discovery? 

I really like Wilson:

New York, NY – Wilson is a podcast magazine. Once a week, we’ll send you a curated playlist of culturally relevant and thematically significant episodes packaged into a perfect issue. You don’t need to register, there is no onboarding, and we don’t use algorithms that syphon you into your own personal content hell. We’ve built a new and different way to experience, curate, and build community around the thing we love the most: podcasts.

Anyways, excited to see who will win 🙂 


Also published on Medium.