Songza Releases Major Upgrade: Lean Back & Enjoy [A First Look]
Songza has always been about quickly finding a playlist that fits your mood and taste. With today's release of Songza 3.0 for the iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch, the fast rising music streamer has made that experience even simpler. “This app update coincides
with four new milestones for Songza," states Elias Roman,
co-founder and CEO of Songza. "We’ve just had our 6 millionth App Store
install and served over 560 million songs in the last 30 days. We’re now
reaching 4.7 million monthly active users who spend more than 65 million minutes
with Songza each day.” The company also recently completed a $3.8 million fund-raising round.
My First Look
As a regular user, I went into the upgrade a bit skecptical. Please, Songza, don't mess with something that already works so well for me. Don't clutter it with new features.
Not too worry. The Songza designers appear only out to impress with improved simplicity, not overload it with features – though there are a few surprises if you want to find them. Overall the app feels more responsive, the design a little less cluttered, and moving around around it feels even easier.
Now available from the iTunes App Store, Songza 3.0 also brings these upgrades:
-
Search for an artist, and you’ll see every pro-curated playlist on
Songza that features them. Make your selection, and the playlist will begin with a song by that artist. - To make music discovery easier, in-app tips help you
move from playlists you’re getting tired of to new ones. - The HQ Audio feature, powered by Audyssey
Laboratories, improves headphone sound quality without
increasing data plan usage. Many
new headphone models are available and easier to select. Hopefully they'll soon do the same for computer and portable speakers. - When you're short on time, a long press on any Concierge
"situation" like "driving" starts a playlist that Songza
thinks you'll like. Watch out broadcasters, starting your Songza playlist can
now be as fast as turning on your car radio. - From the Concierge screen on an iPhone or iPod Touch, shake your device and enter what
you're doing and Songza will find an appropriate playlist.
What's Next?
With already impressive usage likely to accelerate after this upgrade, how long can Songza stay a 100% free service. (Ads currently run on the site and apps, and not in-stream?.)
A traditional music streamers like Spotify or Rhapsody would be smart to acquire Songza to add their impressive features and the team that created them. Or perhaps Songza as part of a broader streaming music service is what early investor Amazon has had in mind all along.
