Activity 1: Data is the Next Intel Inside

All web applications rely on data, and its management is becoming a core part of a business’ strategy in an aim to get the most out of one of their vital assets. Hence, O’Reilly has made “data is the next Intel Inside” one of its web 2.0 patterns. Many companies, such as Spotify, are learning to balance having a good control over their data, whilst giving users the access and rights to their own data and the platform's, so together they can explore the Spotify's full potential.

The Platform

Spotify is a web, desktop, and mobile application which allows users to stream millions of music tracks; follow artists, playlists, radios, and friends, as well as share libraries and playlists with friends. Based on a user’s activities, the application is able to suggest other music the user may enjoy listening to. The company is meeting one of O’Reilly’s best practices by designed their data for reuse. They have released an API, allowing outside developers to fetch Spotify’s data relating to artists, albums, and single tracks and users’ personal playlists and libraries (with their permission).

The Competition

Compared to other common music streaming platforms, Spotify is a leader in API offerings. YouTube is one of their main competitors, however it is focused on playing a single video (or much less often, a playlist), instead of Spotify’s more specialised constant streaming of audio. Both platforms allow the retrieval and streaming of tracks/videos or playlists, however Spotify does fall behind when compared to YouTube’s Analytics API, which allows developers to access viewing statistics, viewer demographics, and popularity ratings.

Spotify’s other major competitor is iTunes, which also has released an API. However, the iTunes API has a lot fewer capabilities. Like Spotify, it allows for developers to search the store and display a song or album’s information, but unlike Spotify, it only allows for a small preview of a song to be played. Most crippling though, is that Apple (the owners of iTunes) don’t allow the API to be used for any purpose except to promote the store (even going as far as requiring an iTunes icon displayed wherever it’s used), and explicitly banning entertainment usage. This means that Apple is missing out on many opportunities for its data to be used and exposed to developers with ideas, allowing for Spotify to swoop in and gain a huge market share.

The Future

One best practice Spotify must work on is allowing users to control their own data. For example, there is no way for a playlist to be exported to another application such as iTunes or Windows Media Player, even if it consists entirely of the user’s own locally stored music files. Another possible future direction for the platform is focusing on another best practice, enhancing their core data, by creating opportunities for users to make more explicit inputs, such as ratings and reviews.

What are your opinions on Spotify's use of its data? Let me know in the comments.