Echo Nest Launches Chart, Spotify Playlist Of Hottest ‘Discovery’ Music
Music intelligence platform The Echo Nest has just
launched a Spotify playlist of the top 100 “discovery” songs, which are said to
be the songs that people are listening to and talking about the most across the
web. The playlist curates through an internal scoring system that they say
identifies up-and-coming new music from artists who are not yet established.
The Echo Nest system processes the music it
tracks and what people are saying about it, and through a series of mathematical calculations, grants a Discovery Score for every song “in the
universe”.
“The point of this number is to identify songs
that are heating up right now, but which aren’t yet big hits, having been
created by artists who are not yet established,” the company said in a recent
blog post.
These songs are coming from all over the
world, featuring several different styles that are not reflective of any individual
tastes. The Echo Nest believes that they represent the world’s "collective
curiosity". The list will be updated weekly and Spotify users can subscribe to
the playlist within the platform.
“Somewhere in the world, somebody might be
discovering your next
favorite song. And maybe this is how you’ll find out,” the company said.
The
EchoNest's music data API powers music discovery iHeartRadio, eMusic, MOG, Spotify,
Nokia, the BBC and VEVO. The company closed a $17.3 million financing round led
by Norwest Venture Partners back in July, which it says will use the funds to
support sales, international expansion, and new product development.
If you have Spotify installed on your computer, you can check out the Echo Nest Discovery playlist below (otherwise, click here):
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Hisham Dahud is a Senior Analyst for Hypebot.com. Additionally, he is the head of Business Development for Fame House and an independent musician. Follow him on Twitter: @HishamDahud
Hmmm, this is a curious move. It had always appeared as though Echo Nest wanted to be the data service behind other people’s apps/brands. This step suggests that they are willing to compete with their customers by developing their own consumer apps.
I suspect that iHeartRadio, eMusic, MOG, Spotify, Nokia, the BBC and VEVO may not like where this is going. Essentially, EchoNest is using all of the data those big platforms are supplying to them and then building their own B2C consumer brand on the back of it (and using it to help differentiate Spotify from the rest of them).
Seems risky. Maybe this is the start of a big pivot for them into B2C and away from data services?
Jason, and my poor aviophobic Pen on airplane after airplane and sent them clear across the world? What was I thinking? I was thinking about the story, mostly, and that these were people who, each in her or his own way needed to go in quest of something (apart from Augusta, who has everything she needs..