Lost in spotify: folksonomy and wayfinding functions in spotify’s interface and companion apps

ABSTRACT

Music streaming sites are growing rapidly and the novel ways in which site users can organize, explore and present their music are important in music discovery. This paper focuses on the organization and presentation of music through folksonomy in the visual interface of Spotify. The site’s interface is evaluated to determine its overall folksonomy-friendliness using a framework based upon an analysis of wayfinding features. Folksonomy is a social tagging strategy that exemplifies the innovation of dynamic web interfaces but is surprisingly scarce in music streaming interfaces. It can be found in sites composed of user-made content, where users categorize music in their own words. How music is organized in streaming interfaces, and whether it reflects a user’s own musical vocabulary, impacts upon a user’s access to a variety of music, their modes of interaction, and overall power dynamics, in which one path of listening may have more influence than another.

KEYWORDS:

• Folksonomy
• music discovery
• Spotify
• music streaming interfaces

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. Release Radar is a weekly personalized playlist akin to Discover Weekly, but includes only new releases and is renewed each Friday for active users.

2. Collaborative filtering compares the data of similar users to present recommendations. It is most popularly seen as “Customers who purchased this also purchased … ” as found on Amazon.

3. Forgotify’s Twitter bio reads “4 million songs on Spotify have never been played. Not even once. Let’s change that … ” See https://twitter.com/forgotify .

4. API stands for Application Programming Interface. Mulesoft Videos (2015) gives a clear and simple definition: “An API is the messenger that runs and delivers your request to the provider you’re requesting it from, and then delivers the response back to you”. See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s7wmiS2mSXY .

5. Lamere is responsible for building music recommenders for Spotify. Updates on his current work can be found on his Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/plamere; see also http://www.static.echonest.com/popcorn/.

6. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vaporwave .

7. http://everynoise.com/everynoise1d.cgi?scope = all .

8. Macdonald includes a list at the bottom of his site of interesting links that explore tags of Spotify and offer up their own discovery experience or rough category.

9. Figures 5 and 7 have been taken in Spotify in version 1.1.3.259.g8172f63a.

10. Solnit’s playlist can be viewed at http://www.powells.com/post/playlist/rebecca-solnits-playlist-for-hope-in-the-dark .

11. Rasmus Fleischer associated with the Pirate Bay gave an interview on his new book on Spotify at: https://digital.di.se/artikel/han-skriver-en-bok-om-spotify-det-var-fran-borjan-en-pirattjanst.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Amelia Besseny

Dr Amelia Besseny is a lecturer in Music at the University of Newcastle, Australia. She recently completed a PhD in Music, with a thesis entitled, "Folksonomy vs. Taxonomy in the Celestial Jukebox: What does Folksonomy achieve in music streaming?". Her research mostly spans topics of music streaming, categorisation and tagging. She performs and creates music in an experimental duo and an electronic solo project.