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It’s not a home run for me, but I think Spotify recommendations are quite good. They clearly use some form of content based recommendation (extracting features

It’s not a home run for me, but I think Spotify recommendations are quite good. They clearly use some form of content based recommendation (extracting features from the music itself) blended with other methods. It seems to make an honest attempt at serendipity (songs/artists you may like but would otherwise be unlikely to discover). I still think recommender engines should always enable some form of user tuning. If it doesn’t, then the recommender is a tool for services to control your behavior rather than the other way around.

octostone 6y ago
Unless I’m missing this functionality somewhere (entirely possible), this lack of user-tuning has ruined Spotify recs for me, since I listen to entirely different playlists when working or meditating. I don’t check out recommendations to get the latest binaural beats or nature sounds, you know? Although even before I started listening to Spotify while working etc, it seemed to have run out of things to recommend. My weekly discover playlist would be half things I’d already liked. So...who knows. But I miss the discovery functionality quite a bit.
- jointpdf 6y ago
  I personally have a similar problem with the Spotify generated playlists, but I have persnickety preferences in electronic music so it often whiffs. But on the spectrum of recommendation engines it is on the side of honest effort (whereas Netflix is not). And for most users and musical palates I think it works great. Just yesterday my mom complimented me on my Christmas music DJ skills, but it was just the generated continuation of her own playlist. Nothing really beats the recommendations of a human curator with exquisite taste, and just listening to new music nonstop and plucking out the gems as you go.
nwsm 6y ago
I like Spotify's recommendations and have found lots of great artists from it. But now I feel I'm in a kind of Spotify-created rut of listening to static groups of artists. I have mostly stopped listening to my daily mixes because of this. It's also easy to theorize about "big media" controlling what I listen to, so I still feel the need to do my own exploring, even when I'm getting recommended good fresh stuff.

octostone 6y ago

Unless I’m missing this functionality somewhere (entirely possible), this lack of user-tuning has ruined Spotify recs for me, since I listen to entirely different playlists when working or meditating. I don’t check out recommendations to get the latest binaural beats or nature sounds, you know? Although even before I started listening to Spotify while working etc, it seemed to have run out of things to recommend. My weekly discover playlist would be half things I’d already liked. So...who knows. But I miss the discovery functionality quite a bit.

jointpdf 6y ago
I personally have a similar problem with the Spotify generated playlists, but I have persnickety preferences in electronic music so it often whiffs. But on the spectrum of recommendation engines it is on the side of honest effort (whereas Netflix is not). And for most users and musical palates I think it works great. Just yesterday my mom complimented me on my Christmas music DJ skills, but it was just the generated continuation of her own playlist. Nothing really beats the recommendations of a human curator with exquisite taste, and just listening to new music nonstop and plucking out the gems as you go.

nwsm 6y ago

I like Spotify's recommendations and have found lots of great artists from it. But now I feel I'm in a kind of Spotify-created rut of listening to static groups of artists. I have mostly stopped listening to my daily mixes because of this. It's also easy to theorize about "big media" controlling what I listen to, so I still feel the need to do my own exploring, even when I'm getting recommended good fresh stuff.