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Really? My only experience with Discover Weekly (and any other suggestion algorithms, i.e. radios, etc...) has been pretty terrible... It doesn't seem to sugges

Really? My only experience with Discover Weekly (and any other suggestion algorithms, i.e. radios, etc...) has been pretty terrible... It doesn't seem to suggest songs I like at all, and recently it seized upon one single song in one of my playlist and only plays covers of that song and the other songs in the album for my discover weekly for the past several weeks... I love Spotify, but I use Pandora sometimes _exclusively_ for music discovery, and then add to my Spotify.

KallDrexx 9y ago
This is my experience with Discover Weekly as well. Everyone seems to be really divided on how well their algorithms work, they either work really well or terribly. I think it's because the quality of signals their algorithm can key off of is so limited due to it being such a passive medium. There's no way to know if I listened to that track in full because I liked it or because I had it on in the background while doing other work and it wasn't distracting enough (usually the latter is the case for me). Furthermore if I skip a track they don't know if I skipped it because I didn't like it or I wasn't in the mood for that style of music, or I was just sick of that song cause I've heard it enough in the past X listens. There's no way to easily signal to spotify why I'm taking an action, and yet their algorithms are trying to make assumptions over every little action.
- pertsix 9y ago
  Add songs to your library. It's given more weight than simple up-thumb/down-thumb.
  - KozmoNau7 9y ago
    That may be why my recommendations seem to work so well, unlike a lot of other commenters on this article. For posterity, I have a little under 1000 tracks saved from 200 or so artists (of which I am following around half), around 50 favorite album playlists and about as many "I should give this album a listen" playlists. So not really a huge collection in absolute terms. It is very much focused on hard rock and metal, though.
falkenb0t 9y ago
Anecdotal but mine have been pretty great. Of course there are songs that I'm not a fan of but for the most part its recommendations have been spot on.
jqbx_jason 9y ago
I posted this earlier but it got buried: I had the same experience as you and built JQBX[1] to mix it up. It's kind of like Pandora (it's a lot like turntable.fm if you ever used that) but it's user generated so you tend to get more obscure / timely recommendations. [1] https://www.jqbx.fm https://www.jqbx.fm
- garagemc2 9y ago
  wow kinda reminds me of groovesharks dj feature, missed that.
  - paulie_a 9y ago
    Is there anything close to replacing grooveshark? I loved the coding station, plug.dj that tried to replace that was just some guy playing tons of video game themes
- nzoschke 9y ago
  This app is simply amazing. Thank you! Are you worried about any Spotify terms of service issues?
- 1stcity3rdcoast 9y ago
  We love JQBX at my office. Much more friendly than our earlier solution to pass around the line in cable between everyone’s computers all day! Great work
- jscholes 9y ago
  Unfortunately large portions of your web app seem to have aria-hidden set to true on them, which means I can't use it at all with a screen reader.
cirgue 9y ago
I think part of the online music discovery problem is that there is zero social context for it. Using Spotify to discover new music is, at least for me, the media equivalent of eating in a restaurant alone. Sure it's doable, and it's even preferable sometimes, but you're still missing one of the core elements of the experience.
- recursive 9y ago
  What's the normal social context for discovering music? I ask this as someone who has done 99%+ of my music discovery in the last 5 years privately.
  - cirgue 9y ago
    The same as the social context for books, film, or any other kind of media: you talk about and experience it with your friends.
    - recursive 9y ago
      Oh, I get it now. I had a kid, and don't really talk to friends anymore.
- gehwartzen 9y ago
  That's why I prefer 8tracks for music discovery. User generated play lists still give me a much better results than algorithms. I don't always want something that matches what I already like but instead new stuff that compliments it.
- AlphaWeaver 9y ago
  I think that that's a nice idea, but in reality, my experience is that even people who like similar interests can vary _wildly_ in music choice... I think that social discovery of music just leads to less crystallization of tastes and more people liking a "mainstream" song instead of music choices that actually interest them...

KallDrexx 9y ago

This is my experience with Discover Weekly as well. Everyone seems to be really divided on how well their algorithms work, they either work really well or terribly. I think it's because the quality of signals their algorithm can key off of is so limited due to it being such a passive medium. There's no way to know if I listened to that track in full because I liked it or because I had it on in the background while doing other work and it wasn't distracting enough (usually the latter is the case for me). Furthermore if I skip a track they don't know if I skipped it because I didn't like it or I wasn't in the mood for that style of music, or I was just sick of that song cause I've heard it enough in the past X listens. There's no way to easily signal to spotify why I'm taking an action, and yet their algorithms are trying to make assumptions over every little action.

pertsix 9y ago
Add songs to your library. It's given more weight than simple up-thumb/down-thumb.
- KozmoNau7 9y ago
  That may be why my recommendations seem to work so well, unlike a lot of other commenters on this article. For posterity, I have a little under 1000 tracks saved from 200 or so artists (of which I am following around half), around 50 favorite album playlists and about as many "I should give this album a listen" playlists. So not really a huge collection in absolute terms. It is very much focused on hard rock and metal, though.

falkenb0t 9y ago

Anecdotal but mine have been pretty great. Of course there are songs that I'm not a fan of but for the most part its recommendations have been spot on.

jqbx_jason 9y ago

I posted this earlier but it got buried: I had the same experience as you and built JQBX[1] to mix it up. It's kind of like Pandora (it's a lot like turntable.fm if you ever used that) but it's user generated so you tend to get more obscure / timely recommendations. [1] https://www.jqbx.fm https://www.jqbx.fm

garagemc2 9y ago
wow kinda reminds me of groovesharks dj feature, missed that.
- paulie_a 9y ago
  Is there anything close to replacing grooveshark? I loved the coding station, plug.dj that tried to replace that was just some guy playing tons of video game themes
nzoschke 9y ago
This app is simply amazing. Thank you! Are you worried about any Spotify terms of service issues?
1stcity3rdcoast 9y ago
We love JQBX at my office. Much more friendly than our earlier solution to pass around the line in cable between everyone’s computers all day! Great work
jscholes 9y ago
Unfortunately large portions of your web app seem to have aria-hidden set to true on them, which means I can't use it at all with a screen reader.

cirgue 9y ago

I think part of the online music discovery problem is that there is zero social context for it. Using Spotify to discover new music is, at least for me, the media equivalent of eating in a restaurant alone. Sure it's doable, and it's even preferable sometimes, but you're still missing one of the core elements of the experience.

recursive 9y ago
What's the normal social context for discovering music? I ask this as someone who has done 99%+ of my music discovery in the last 5 years privately.
- cirgue 9y ago
  The same as the social context for books, film, or any other kind of media: you talk about and experience it with your friends.
  - recursive 9y ago
    Oh, I get it now. I had a kid, and don't really talk to friends anymore.
gehwartzen 9y ago
That's why I prefer 8tracks for music discovery. User generated play lists still give me a much better results than algorithms. I don't always want something that matches what I already like but instead new stuff that compliments it.
AlphaWeaver 9y ago
I think that that's a nice idea, but in reality, my experience is that even people who like similar interests can vary _wildly_ in music choice... I think that social discovery of music just leads to less crystallization of tastes and more people liking a "mainstream" song instead of music choices that actually interest them...