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Netflix and Spotify Ask: Can Data Mining Make for Cute Ads?

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Re: Netflix and Spotify Ask: Can Data Mining Make for Cute Ads?

#31

Post by nerflad »

voltagex_ wrote: post #25
nerflad wrote: post #2

Cute? No. These ads are smug and tone-deaf. Complete disregard for privacy has become the rule rather than the exception on the internet, and these ads practically celebrate that. I don't care if the data is anonymized. I've never had a Netflix account and I've already started building my .flac library back up and will be cancelling my spotify subscription. The convenience of these services is not worth their disresp…

Without piracy I have two problems with my music collection: 1. My running playlist would cost $700+AUD to buy. 2. Most places don't have FLAC available or even 320kbit MP3

I encourage you to check out https://hdtracks.com. As far as the expense goes, yes you're right it's a drag. One thing I like to do is buy used CD's on ebay or Amazon (usually about half price from a reseller, or even cheaper from private sellers) and rip them to flac.

Re: Netflix and Spotify Ask: Can Data Mining Make for Cute Ads?

#32

Post by bogomipz »

daenney wrote: post #15
bogomipz wrote: post #6

Way to go Spotify, you paid more for that advertising space than you did to the artist for streaming their their content to your users. Using someone else's art as a surveillance marketing tool? Wow that's gross even by the music industry's low standards. Congrats, you've really made it!

> Way to go Spotify, you paid more for that advertising space than you did to the artist for streaming their their content to your users. How do you know what they paid? > Using someone else's art as a surveillance marketing tool? They're not using someone else's art for these statistics.

>"How do you know what they paid?"

It's well known that artists get paid less than 1 cent for a stream [1]. Do the math with the figures they mentioned in those ads. Now look at the ad rates for the New York City subway stations.[2]

>"They're not using someone else's art for these statistics."

When you are an artist and you write songs, those songs belong to you. So yes they are using somebody else's art.

[1] https://www.spin.com/2013/12/spotify-details-royalty-payouts...

[2] http://nymag.com/nymetro/news/people/columns/intelligencer/1...

Re: Netflix and Spotify Ask: Can Data Mining Make for Cute Ads?

#33

Post by Just_Smith »

nerflad wrote: post #30
Just_Smith wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your comment makes me wonder how you believe this data is viewed in the business. I work in BI, who are usually the developers who turn such data in to insights that can be comprehended by the people in businesses who don't know the first thing about databases. Just from my personal experience in such analysis, I think it's highly unlikely they're looking at the "who" behind the weird listening patterns they're repor…

In this example, you're absolutely right, and if all they had was my name and my listening history, that wouldn't be so bad. But some of the ads do reference specific individuals. Spotify in particular have made it clear that 1.) listening behavior profiles may be "anonymized" in the sense that they have had the names sanitized from them, but there is a myriad of other potentially identifiable data, such as location,…

You're right about some of the ads touching the individual level, but if they're following any "best practices" in their data models, those individuals are likely just unique identifiers.

Granted, everything I'm saying is most certainly speculation. There could most certainly be some folks scouring this data with insensitive intentions. I'm just pointing out that that there are actual technical AND practical limitations to doing such reporting effectively.

Re: Netflix and Spotify Ask: Can Data Mining Make for Cute Ads?

#34

Post by JumpCrisscross »

bogomipz wrote: post #32
daenney wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Way to go Spotify, you paid more for that advertising space than you did to the artist for streaming their their content to your users. How do you know what they paid? > Using someone else's art as a surveillance marketing tool? They're not using someone else's art for these statistics.

>"How do you know what they paid?" It's well known that artists get paid less than 1 cent for a stream [1]. Do the math with the figures they mentioned in those ads. Now look at the ad rates for the New York City subway stations.[2] >"They're not using someone else's art for these statistics." When you are an artist and you write songs, those songs belong to you. So yes they are using somebody else's art. [1] https:/…

> artists get paid less than 1 cent for a stream

Spotify pays 70 to 85% of its revenues to music labels as royalties [1]. The problem isn’t with Spotify. It’s in the contracts between the labels and artists.

[1] https://www.musicbusinessworldwide.com/spotify-revenues-topp...

Re: Netflix and Spotify Ask: Can Data Mining Make for Cute Ads?

#35

Post by dna_polymerase »

nerflad wrote: post #28
dna_polymerase wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Complete disregard for privacy has become the rule rather than the exception on the internet, and these ads practically celebrate that. Ahahaha, has me in tears, really. For all we know, these claims could as well be made up. We can't verify that 53 people watched any movie 18 days in a row. Why? Well because they didn't actually violate these peoples privacy by dropping their names. The only entity that could use…

> For all we know, these claims could as well be made up. The companies have confirmed that is not the case. > They didn't actually violate these peoples privacy by dropping their names. The articles mentions a Spotify ad that said “To the person in NoLiTa who started listening to holiday music way back in June, you really jingle all the way, huh?" I mean, how much more specific can you get? Nolita is five square blo…

> The companies have confirmed that is not the case.

Okay, so we can't trust them with data but their statements are 100% to be taken seriously? Slightly contradicting.

> how much more specific can you get?

Well, put their names on it

> Nolita is five square blocks

Umm, yeah in New York City, meaning we are talking about 50k people [0].

[0]: https://www.point2homes.com/US/Neighborhood/NY/Manhattan/NoL...

Re: Netflix and Spotify Ask: Can Data Mining Make for Cute Ads?

#36

Post by nerflad »

dna_polymerase wrote: post #35
nerflad wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> For all we know, these claims could as well be made up. The companies have confirmed that is not the case. > They didn't actually violate these peoples privacy by dropping their names. The articles mentions a Spotify ad that said “To the person in NoLiTa who started listening to holiday music way back in June, you really jingle all the way, huh?" I mean, how much more specific can you get? Nolita is five square blo…

> The companies have confirmed that is not the case. Okay, so we can't trust them with data but their statements are 100% to be taken seriously? Slightly contradicting. > how much more specific can you get? Well, put their names on it > Nolita is five square blocks Umm, yeah in New York City, meaning we are talking about 50k people [0]. [0]: https://www.point2homes.com/US/Neighborhood/NY/Manhattan/NoL...

What level of specificity would you no longer be comfortable with? If it had been 500 or 50 people, would that still have been okay? How you can be sure that this data is inocuous? You can't predict the intentions of every stalker or bad actor that might have access to this data or be able find a use for it.

Listening habits can make a good forecast for other lifestyle habits; i.e, he listens to a lot of jazz, maybe I can find him at Maxwell's drum shop. She streamed a song by Purity Ring 25 times, I bet she'll be at their show in Brooklyn this weekend.

Re: Netflix and Spotify Ask: Can Data Mining Make for Cute Ads?

#37

Post by bogomipz »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #34
bogomipz wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>"How do you know what they paid?" It's well known that artists get paid less than 1 cent for a stream [1]. Do the math with the figures they mentioned in those ads. Now look at the ad rates for the New York City subway stations.[2] >"They're not using someone else's art for these statistics." When you are an artist and you write songs, those songs belong to you. So yes they are using somebody else's art. [1] https:/…

> artists get paid less than 1 cent for a stream Spotify pays 70 to 85% of its revenues to music labels as royalties [1]. The problem isn’t with Spotify. It’s in the contracts between the labels and artists. [1] https://www.musicbusinessworldwide.com/spotify-revenues-topp...

>"The problem isn’t with Spotify. It’s in the contracts between the labels and artists."

That's the convenient lie - "Oh we have nothing to do with that, that's between the record label and the artist."

The overwhelming majority of Spotify users are free tier users(90 million) not paid users(50 million.)[1]

Ad supported streams pay out an even worse royalty rate to artists than the paid user tier royalty rates. And that free tier rate appears to be declining as well.[2]

Spotify's business model depends on converting those free tier users to paid users - that's the funnel. So yes Spotify very much depends on this awful arrangement between the record label and artist.

[1] https://venturebeat.com/2017/06/15/spotify-announces-140-mil...

[2] https://www.digitalmusicnews.com/2017/05/16/spotify-audiam-l...

Re: Netflix and Spotify Ask: Can Data Mining Make for Cute Ads?

#38

Post by eridius »

dna_polymerase wrote: post #23
nerflad wrote: post #2

Cute? No. These ads are smug and tone-deaf. Complete disregard for privacy has become the rule rather than the exception on the internet, and these ads practically celebrate that. I don't care if the data is anonymized. I've never had a Netflix account and I've already started building my .flac library back up and will be cancelling my spotify subscription. The convenience of these services is not worth their disresp…

> Complete disregard for privacy has become the rule rather than the exception on the internet, and these ads practically celebrate that. Ahahaha, has me in tears, really. For all we know, these claims could as well be made up. We can't verify that 53 people watched any movie 18 days in a row. Why? Well because they didn't actually violate these peoples privacy by dropping their names. The only entity that could use…

It doesn't matter if it's made up. At the very least it appears as though Netflix and Spotify are completely disregarding privacy, and that's all that really matters.

Re: Netflix and Spotify Ask: Can Data Mining Make for Cute Ads?

#40

Post by ohstopitu »

I found those ads funny (I assumed they were not derived from customer data - just something made up for the sake of comedy).

That said I wanted to know the end-goal of those ads?

If it's going to make me convert or sign up - that does not look like it's going to happen (no CTA, no real driver etc.)

If the idea is to be on people's mind (informational) - I can see it being hip/fellow-kids' like (considering it's coming from a multi-million dollar corporate entity) - I don't see how it'll last longer than a few weeks at best (considering the amount they probably spent on it).

That said, I can see how it stands out from the crowd (creepy factor not outstanding).

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