Spotify Adds Sleep Playlists While Songza Discovers The Power Of Weather

Though Spotify ultimately rejected the "Sleepify" project, Spotify has added both sleep and dinner categories to their Browse options with a variety of available playlists. Back in March Songza began using weather as an additional "signal" for determining listener's activities and moods before recommending music. Since then they've discovered that weather-related recommendations are more likely to lead to streaming a playlist.

Spotify Launches Dinner and Sleep Categories

This week Spotify announced the addition of two new categories of music, Dinner and Sleep.

Dinner: "As of today, you can find playlists for all kinds of dinners in Browse. You can host a Picnic in the Park, celebrate Taco Tuesday, or cook up The Perfect Italian Dinner. We have even Flaming Hot BBQ Classics, Breakbeat BBQ and Reggae BBQ playlists to choose from."

Sleep: "We’re launching Sleep as a whole new category in Browse. Sleep is your new home for synapse-stroking, non-invasive, care-banishing, pillow-smoothing, muscle-relaxing playlists – the dream-ticket for those times when you need to turn it all off, relax, and float downstream."

"Weather converts at a disproportionately high rate"

Songza CEO Elias Roman says that "weather is a new signal that we’ve added to our tech stack, and it is the highest-converting content we offer."

Using data from the Weather Channel, they've been figuring out what kind of weather listeners are experiencing since March to recommend music. For Songza the "conversion rate" is "measured by tracking impressions within the app which lead to a streamed playlist."

Roman reveals that, “weather converts at a disproportionately high rate…It has stepped up our game."

More:

• Curation Is King: Google Acquires Songza For $39M
• Spotify Gives Developers Playlist Creation Superpowers
• Songza Partners With Weather Channel For Weather-Driven Music Recommendations

Hypebot Senior Contributor Clyde Smith (@fluxresearch) also blogs at DanceLand. Send news about music tech startups and services, DIY music biz and music marketing to: clyde(at)fluxresearch(dot)com.