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YouTube Music, a new music streaming service, is coming soon

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Re: YouTube Music, a new music streaming service, is coming soon

#271
post #243
post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I like the memorial video and don't mind standing for it at all. Altough it would be a nice touch if they put subtitles on it.

Chiming in real quick. Why the downvote HN? Let a guy have his preferences (:

I don't know for sure why the downvote, but maybe because Thailand is a place where you can be imprisoned or exiled for criticizing the (late) king. It's not hard to imagine somebody on HN might not be cool with somebody supporting that sort of enforced devotion.

Re: YouTube Music, a new music streaming service, is coming soon

#272
post #13

Normally when I see this kind of announcement, I think "It will take long before they learn and nail it like the main competition" - in this case Spotify. Spotify seems to be doing a great job curating new music or building playlist specifically for me according to what I listen to, and I can only assume it's 100% automated obviously. Google is so strong with ML today, and not stopping, I don't know what will allow s…

What you’re saying seems like it must be true... Google must be so strong at ML. How could it be otherwise? And yet, YouTube recommendations are terrible lowest common denominator nonsense. It’s just “more of the same” for some surface level definition of “same”. There doesn’t seem to be any playfulness to the learning algorithm at all. No Bayesian experiments. There’s no flex. Amazon too... so much data, so many sma…

You are making a good point - Youtube recommendations ARE garbage. But I wonder how harder recommending videos compared to music. My guess is that doing data analysis on music in simpler because you only have to analyse the music data itself (frequency, bpm, etc) + related artists, etc.

I'm sure doing movies recommendation is easier than youtube videos. For example I watched "this is america" recently. I liked the video, but mostly because of the video, not the music. How does youtube understands that I want more of this type of imagery and not sound? Very hard.

That might also explain why we services like Spotify doing a good job at discovery, but I can't think of a service doing the same for videos.

But I agree with you, lots of example of google not doing a good job with ML. At the same time, it seems like they are doing a good job with ML on other (maybe simpler) things, such as gmail/inbox, search, etc.

Re: YouTube Music, a new music streaming service, is coming soon

#273

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What you’re saying seems like it must be true... Google must be so strong at ML. How could it be otherwise? And yet, YouTube recommendations are terrible lowest common denominator nonsense. It’s just “more of the same” for some surface level definition of “same”. There doesn’t seem to be any playfulness to the learning algorithm at all. No Bayesian experiments. There’s no flex. Amazon too... so much data, so many sma…

One of the many problems with machine learning, and using it for recommendations, is that it completely ignores how humans think and behave. Just because I watch a few videos of a certain type today, and actively seek them out, doesn't mean that I want to see similar videos again next week. Maybe I was just in the mood for that type of content today, tomorrow may be something completely different. That being said, Yo…

That's because there is so much variation in what you watch on youtube - from listening to music, to movie trailers, to sports highlights, to howtos about cooking, etc.

The music we listen to is way easier to analyse, even if we have some variation in what we like. Sometimes im in the mood for classical, sometimes its rap. Easy to differentiate and offer me playlists for each genre.

Re: YouTube Music, a new music streaming service, is coming soon

#274

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What you’re saying seems like it must be true... Google must be so strong at ML. How could it be otherwise? And yet, YouTube recommendations are terrible lowest common denominator nonsense. It’s just “more of the same” for some surface level definition of “same”. There doesn’t seem to be any playfulness to the learning algorithm at all. No Bayesian experiments. There’s no flex. Amazon too... so much data, so many sma…

Not just YouTube, Google Play Music's recommendations are truly terrible. I'm regularly being recommended whatever is popular, rather than anything I'll actually listen to. The only time I've ever witnessed Google Play get a recommendation right is when a band I've already added to my library releases a new album. It irks me that after being a subscriber for many years, Google Play still doesn't have anything like Sp…

So I guess this actually trumps my previous point, which was music is easier than video. But if you say now google is garbage at recommending music too... then I guess they are not as great as I thought on ML.

Re: YouTube Music, a new music streaming service, is coming soon

#275
post #41
post #13

Normally when I see this kind of announcement, I think "It will take long before they learn and nail it like the main competition" - in this case Spotify. Spotify seems to be doing a great job curating new music or building playlist specifically for me according to what I listen to, and I can only assume it's 100% automated obviously. Google is so strong with ML today, and not stopping, I don't know what will allow s…

> Google is so strong with ML today, and not stopping, I don't know what will allow smaller competitors to stay differentiated. I just had a call with a G recruiter, and pretty much 100% of the roles they have in all their European offices are ML-related roles, on most products. And they hire without ML experience, which I think is a sign of how much they are investing in ML. Weird. I'm having the opposite experience…

email me and I'll send you the email of the recruiter I told to.

Re: YouTube Music, a new music streaming service, is coming soon

#276

YouTube is the only service I've used that gets WORSE if you pay. Without paying I can watch one video on my TV while browsing other videos on my laptop to queue up. With paying as soon as look up a video on my laptop I get an error on the tv "only one device allowed"

I disagree. My YouTube experience greatly improved with red. No more ads. Ability to download videos for a long commute / plane ride.

You can do all of that easily without paying though, and without having the two screens issue.

Re: YouTube Music, a new music streaming service, is coming soon

#277

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What you’re saying seems like it must be true... Google must be so strong at ML. How could it be otherwise? And yet, YouTube recommendations are terrible lowest common denominator nonsense. It’s just “more of the same” for some surface level definition of “same”. There doesn’t seem to be any playfulness to the learning algorithm at all. No Bayesian experiments. There’s no flex. Amazon too... so much data, so many sma…

Not just YouTube, Google Play Music's recommendations are truly terrible. I'm regularly being recommended whatever is popular, rather than anything I'll actually listen to. The only time I've ever witnessed Google Play get a recommendation right is when a band I've already added to my library releases a new album. It irks me that after being a subscriber for many years, Google Play still doesn't have anything like Sp…

Can I ask what music?

It's been pretty good for me with new releases. I mean, it's not perfect but I listen to mostly indie rock and it's turned me on to a lot of stuff I enjoy, and it never suggests top 40. I also never use the thumbs up/down.

Re: YouTube Music, a new music streaming service, is coming soon

#278
post #269

Do they really need to rebrand every time they fix a bug or offer some improvements? Yes, I'm exaggerating, but how do you expect to create a market of loyal users for something we don't know will last more than year?

It's insane, right? You would think with their talent pool and billion dollar-sized budgets they wouldn't struggle with basic brand marketing. The insulting part of this change is that they are raising prices and further fragmenting an already half-baked service. Google needs to take advice from someone like John Legere and start building cohesive products.

https://www.geekwire.com/2016/listen-shut-f-tell-t-mobiles-j...

Re: YouTube Music, a new music streaming service, is coming soon

#279
post #101
post #43

>If you are a subscriber to Google Play Music, good news, you get a YouTube Music Premium membership as part of your subscription each month. Calling it now, within 5 years there are at least 5 different Google services for streaming music (up from 3 now, Play Music/Youtube/Youtube Music) at least 2 of which are also somehow messaging apps. It's even plausible, one for VR music videos, one for streaming in your self…

Google operates under the assumption that they're making a "free market": they have a ton of services, some competing directly, and in the end a winner emerges and snuffs everyone else out. I guess someone should tell them about the paradox of choice, branch dilution and the fact that despite Google being big, they're not an entire market unto themselves. Google: make 1 big, single, integrated service and when a star…

> Google: make 1 big, single, integrated service and when a startup supplants you in your selected market, just buy them for $15 billion.

They tried that with Google Plus. It didn't work so they tried to buy Twitter. That also didn't work, so we have the Google we have now.

Re: YouTube Music, a new music streaming service, is coming soon

#280
The way Google brands products reminds me of Microsoft when they tried to attach an unrelated product to a moderately popular consumer brand (Looking at you Groove Music, I mean Xbox Music, I mean Zune Music)

There is nothing wrong with Google Play Music apart from the 'Play' misnomer. Google Music should be a standalone product that competes with Spotify. It's a well defined and well understood category. YouTube is a different product, used by different people, for different purposes and in different ways. Now you're confusing everything. Can I get audio-only version of YouTube videos or just YouTube music videos or does it have to be an audio-only upload? Does that mean you can have audio-only YouTube videos now (even without putting in some reference image?)? Is it going to kill my bandwidth if I try to stream on LTE? Is it going to replace Google Music? Are my playlists in Google Music and YouTube going to be replaced? Will there be YouTube comments on music (I hope not)? Can anybody upload to YouTube music? A year ago Google added mediocre support for podcasts to Google Music instead of building a dedicated app - will YouTube Music handle podcasts? URGH!

All they needed to do was to add background playback to YouTube and maybe a little link to the YouTube video in Google Music, and if you're watching a music video on YouTube, a link to a streaming service of your choice (like Google Music, Spotify or Apple Music).

Given how poorly this has been thought through, you just know in 2 years there will be another rebrand.

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