Spotify vs the US Competition • Hacker News Board

Re: Spotify vs the US Competition

#101

Post by earbitscom » Sun, Jul 17, 2011, 3:19 AM UTC

physcab wrote: post #98

earbitscom wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The simple fact is, without mainstream content, Grooveshark would be a joke. Putting in a requirement - Do not play songs with the word Primus in the metadata - would probably "accidentally" keep out some cover bands' songs that are legally uploaded, but it would do a very good job of keeping out most Primus music. Even if that music showed up, but without the metadata, nobody would be finding it in searches, which a…

If Primus sees their content on our site and they don't want it there, all they have to do is tell us. And we'll do exactly what you say by filtering any mention of the word Primus, take it down promptly and do everything we can to make it never happen again.

I see...so the bands are responsible for knowing about Grooveshark, policing Grooveshark, letting you know, and THEN you'll put preventative measures in place. The point is that those measures should have been in place from the get-go, because anyone in their right mind knows that Primus isn't sitting their uploading their tunes to Grooveshark.

Re: Spotify vs the US Competition

#102

Post by parbo » Sun, Jul 17, 2011, 5:15 AM UTC

SkyMarshal wrote: post #93

parbo wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm a Spotify dev. What sort of data would you find most useful to have extracted from iTunes? The reason we don't do the smart playlists is that we just take a snapshot (the lists aren't kept in sync) and the very nature of smart playlists is that they are dynamic.

Even a snapshot of smart and dumb playlists would be better than nothing. The use case is, users who want to migrate to Spotify from whatever they've been using for years, intend to copy over their playlists to Spotify, and permanently switch to Spotify as their main playlist organizer/generator. But having to recreate all their playlists by hand in Spotify is enough to stymie even the most enthusiastic US/NA Spotify…

What format is Playlist Builder using, m3u perhaps?

Re: Spotify vs the US Competition

#103

Post by parbo » Sun, Jul 17, 2011, 5:24 AM UTC

SkyMarshal wrote: post #93

parbo wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm a Spotify dev. What sort of data would you find most useful to have extracted from iTunes? The reason we don't do the smart playlists is that we just take a snapshot (the lists aren't kept in sync) and the very nature of smart playlists is that they are dynamic.

Even a snapshot of smart and dumb playlists would be better than nothing. The use case is, users who want to migrate to Spotify from whatever they've been using for years, intend to copy over their playlists to Spotify, and permanently switch to Spotify as their main playlist organizer/generator. But having to recreate all their playlists by hand in Spotify is enough to stymie even the most enthusiastic US/NA Spotify…

You can drag a playlist from iTunes and drop it on the "New Playlist" button in the left sidebar in Spotify. I don't know if it works with Genius lists, but it works with "Recently Played" and other dynamic lists.

Re: Spotify vs the US Competition

#104

Post by joeguilmette » Sun, Jul 17, 2011, 6:57 AM UTC

parbo wrote: post #82

joeguilmette wrote: post #26

I signed up for Spotify and was pretty disappointed. I have years and years of Data in iTunes, and the only thing Spotify does is pull out tracks. It won't even sync my SmartPlaylists. So it's kind of like starting over. Not something I'm willing to do.

I'm a Spotify dev. What sort of data would you find most useful to have extracted from iTunes? The reason we don't do the smart playlists is that we just take a snapshot (the lists aren't kept in sync) and the very nature of smart playlists is that they are dynamic.

Well, I find rating songs very important to my own music discovery. I have around 6500 songs in my collection, about half of it rated, and all of it meticulously genred. Making playlists and picking something to listen to is really easy, as is downloading something new and incorporating it into my playlists.

Find a new reggae artist, rate his songs, and boom, next time I'm listening to good reggae, his songs pop up (but just the good ones).

Spotify makes all of my ratings and all my playlists useless. And it is therefore not very useful to me :/

Re: Spotify vs the US Competition

#105

Post by unicornporn » Sun, Jul 17, 2011, 7:56 PM UTC

dgallagher wrote: post #57

After two days with a free account, on a Mac, I noticed this: - If you mute your speakers via OS X while an advertisement is playing, it pauses the ad until you unmute your speakers. - If you turn down your speaker volume via OS X too much while an advertisement is playing, the same behavior occurs until you turn the volume back up. This appears to be relative to the volume you were just listening to music at. Quick…

Or just use Mutify [ https://code.google.com/p/mutify/ ] for Mac. Works very well. There's Blockify [ http://tribe.nu/Blockify.html ] for Windows, but I haven't tried it.

Free version is quite unlistenable these days though. I'm a spoiled Swede though. I started using the service years ago when it was still based on the Spotify employees pirated music collection (with occasional release group names in the metadata).

Re: Spotify vs the US Competition

#106

Post by chrischen » Sun, Jul 17, 2011, 10:48 PM UTC

sjs wrote: post #95

chrischen wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Grooveshark's radio is not the best, but it's probably better than Spotify's Radio, especially in terms of customizability.

Interesting. Are you saying that Spotify's radio is more like actual radio? Where you just listen and what's on is on? If so then Grooveshark definitely deserves a higher rating than Spotify for radio. Recommendations can be improved but not being able to skip a track is a big design flaw (for me, I can see how some want a set-it-and-forget-it radio).

You can skip tracks in Spotify's radio, but you only get fixed stations by genre.

Re: Spotify vs the US Competition

#107

Post by SkyMarshal » Mon, Jul 18, 2011, 6:07 AM UTC

parbo wrote: post #102

SkyMarshal wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even a snapshot of smart and dumb playlists would be better than nothing. The use case is, users who want to migrate to Spotify from whatever they've been using for years, intend to copy over their playlists to Spotify, and permanently switch to Spotify as their main playlist organizer/generator. But having to recreate all their playlists by hand in Spotify is enough to stymie even the most enthusiastic US/NA Spotify…

What format is Playlist Builder using, m3u perhaps?

.m3u8, all stored in what appears to be /Playlists, though my phone isn't rooted so I'm not sure if that's the highest level of the directory structure.

Re: Spotify vs the US Competition

#108

Post by parbo » Tue, Jul 19, 2011, 8:39 PM UTC

joeguilmette wrote: post #104

parbo wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm a Spotify dev. What sort of data would you find most useful to have extracted from iTunes? The reason we don't do the smart playlists is that we just take a snapshot (the lists aren't kept in sync) and the very nature of smart playlists is that they are dynamic.

Well, I find rating songs very important to my own music discovery. I have around 6500 songs in my collection, about half of it rated, and all of it meticulously genred. Making playlists and picking something to listen to is really easy, as is downloading something new and incorporating it into my playlists. Find a new reggae artist, rate his songs, and boom, next time I'm listening to good reggae, his songs pop up (…

I see how rating helps with making playlists from your own library of already rated tracks, but could you explain how it helps with discovery of new artists?