This was one of those occasions when a bug in the system proved that you might have a hit on your hands.
On Monday, as has been the case for the past two months, hundreds of thousands of Spotify users waited patiently for their personalised Discover Weekly playlist to upload.
And waited. And waited some more. And then realised a new playlist was not forthcoming so went on social media to give out yards.
According to Spotify, a “known bug” caused the problem with the weekly updates, and efforts were quickly made to solve the problem. But while the outage may have caused a lot of frustration among users, the reaction was also a sign that Spotify is doing something right.
In a world where every single streaming service is championing playlists as an unique selling point, it’s clear that the Discover Weekly selection box has become a bit of a smash in a very short space of time.
Compiled based on what you’ve been listening to on the service, it’s a super guide to new and old stuff that you just might take a fancy to. Unlike Spotify’s hit-and-miss Fresh Finds and a lot of the wishy-washy Apple Music playlists, you’ll always find a few gems on Discover Weekly to add to your own collection.
People are clearly listening to their individual playlists and are using what they hear as a guide to what to check out next. And yes, this even applies to snobby, hard-to-please, bona-fide music bores like this writer. Jim Carroll
