One of the newest features for Spotify is Behind the Lyrics playlists, powered by Genius, which allows subscribers to follow the lyrics and annotations of songs. The music streaming service is also making customized, Genius-annotated playlists from artists such as R&B singer Tinashe, rapper Pusha T and DJ Diplo, and will also be launching a Genius-powered Behind the Lyrics (Hits) playlist for Top 40-style popular music.
Behind the Lyrics is just one of the many features Spotify has pushed out as the music streaming service competes against rivals such as relative newcomer Apple Music. Spotify has also been very helpful in allowing users to find music they would like, such as with the Discover Weekly playlist that is populated with customized recommendations.
However, Spotify has recently been moving away from the discovery of music through the user's social network, and an app is looking to fulfill that function for Spotify.
OurMix, now available for both iOS and Android, is a music discovery service for users of Spotify. It taps into social networks to tell users what music their friends are discovering and then compares the tracks with the users' own interests to make listening recommendations.
This recommendation system addresses a mistake that Spotify previously made, which is the assumption that friends on Facebook share the same tastes in music. OurMix also serves as great ears for word-of-mouth buzz on a certain artist, as well as helps casual listeners broaden their musical horizons.
OurMix continuously analyzes the library of a Spotify user to see what music the user likes, then selects songs from the Spotify libraries of the user's friends they could also like. OurMix users can also follow OurMix curators, who can help users dive into certain genres of music they like in case their friends on their social networks are not into that specific genre much.
Once daily, OurMix delivers music suggestions to users, and users can set the time they want to receive the suggestions. Users can simply tap on the listed tracks to listen to them, and then swipe left if they don't like the track or right if they want to add it on Spotify.
Users also have the option of saving the entire list of suggested tracks, which can also be shared on social networks or sent to friends through a text message.
The suggested songs include tracks that friends have saved on their Spotify playlists but users do not have in their own library yet. Users also do not have to manually share tracks to be included in OurMix suggestions, as the app makes the recommendations based on Spotify activity.
Spotify Free users will only be able to listen to 30-second clips of the suggested music though, while paid subscribers will have no problem in listening to the whole song.
OurMix CEO and co-founder Kishore Doddi, however, said that in the future, the app could be expanded to work not only for Spotify but also for other music streaming services.
"Our main goal, both short-term and long-term, is to help people discover music they love," said Doddi.
