Spotify finally spot on with their radio

There’s a only handful of SaaS products I happily shell out cash for. One of my most valued subscriptions, since 2009, has been for Spotify.

I use it several times daily, across all my devices, and constantly use it to share my tastes to my friends and the world (even though it’s disappointingly not available in my homeland of Canada where a good proportion of my friends are). I’ve got my gripes, particularly around the fact I can only sync to 3 of my 4 devices at the same time, but otherwise, I’ve constantly found delight in it, and regularly recommend it to others.

The largest of my gripes however, has always been in the discovery element of their product, showing me music I might actually like. In short, it’s been seriously lacking. Spotify knows full well what I prefer to listen to, and has never made much of an effort to help me find new music based on previous habits.

Until recently, that is, when I stumbled upon their updated radio feature.

Unlike the previous version of their radio (which weakly gave a small set of somewhat cliché genres to choose from), the new radio kicks off the moment you select a song from your library, instantly playing songs that actually really make sense in light of what I like.

Over the last week, I’ve barely turned the radio feature off, and have added a number of great songs into my usual playlists based on the tunes I’ve been able to stumble upon.

Finally, recommended music, exactly where I listen to it, with the ability to seamlessly add it to my growing collection already on Spotify. Simple, delightful, and spot on.

Kudos, Spotify.

Do more

This video is stunning.

It makes me want to get on the next plane, see more of the world, and while I’m at it, record and make something beautiful. I’ll think of this as a resolution of sorts.

Time is Nothing // Around The World Time Lapse from Kien Lam on Vimeo.

Source: PetaPixel – A Year-Long Journey Around the World Captured in Time-Lapse

Photographer Kien Lam quit his job last year and embarked on a 343 day backpacking journey around the world. He ended up traveling through 17 different countries and capturing 6237 photographs in the process. To share his incredible journey, he created this beautiful time-lapse video with short glimpses into various locations he visited. Each 2 second segment is made up of about 40-60 still photographs.