Playlist is a new music streaming app that can take on the likes of Spotify, Pandora and Apple Music. Its killer feature is the ability to play songs with others in real-time. Playlist is, therefore, more of a social app than a music one.
The app is currently available on the App Store for iOS devices. The Android version is still under development.
It does mesh both features seamlessly, in perfect harmony. The app helps users discover other listeners who share a similar interest in music as you. Users can also join group chats and send messages while listening to the same music in real-time.
Users can create playlists with other users as well. This makes for a much more interactive and engaging experience. The app is created by brilliant and creative minds. Playlist was founded by Standford scientists and veteran entrepreneurs Steve Petersen and Karen Katz.
Both Katz and Petersen have achieved milestone accomplishments in the world of technology, especially digital music platforms. According to the duo, the idea behind the app was quite simple. The team wanted to integrate music with texting features. This way users could simultaneously talk to friends while listening to their favorite song.
Katz said,
“The world has gone social, but music has been largely left behind. That’s a real gap. Ever since we started listening to music from our mobile phones, it’s become an isolated experience. And music is the number one thing we do on our phones.”
Playlist used to be called something else during last year’s beta testing phase. The app did create many social engagements and massive hype while it was in the beta stage. All of this is due to the app’s real-time features.
Katz adds that Playlist had ten times more engagement than Pandora. These included chats, likes, follows, joins, adds and creates. On average, people had 60 such engagements in an hour, which is quite remarkable for an app still in its infancy.
There are a lot of neat little tricks and algorithm that makes Playlist a rockstar app. There’s machine learning for friends recommendations, large-scale group chat, collaborative playlists, and mood-based playlists. “Music Match” algorithms help users find people who listen to the same sort of things as they do.
Some of these features are found in other apps as well, but not all and not executed to such a finesse. The social features of the app follow a model similar to Twitter. There will be followers and following model. You will be shown followers’ playlists on your home screen.
There is also a Discover section which helps users find other people and join in some trending chat and listening sessions. The app has close to 45 million licensed songs. There is no subscription plan set in place yet.
Playlist will use ads to monetize. The app currently has a 4.4 rating on the App Store with 219 ratings. It has over 80,000 downloads as of last week. The app has some minor bugs and a few UI issues, all of which can be fixed in a short time.
Fazeel Ashraf
