Technically, it’s enough to stay six feet apart during the pandemic. But in reality, people spend their days miles apart – mostly alone in their home office. What everybody misses is a chat at the coffee machine or in the elevator. And all the other things that are the social glue of office life. We were looking for something that could help us to keep our "agency feeling" (aka: Mojo) through the pandemic. And we had to look no further than our headphones. While working on ideas and budgets and strategies, people are listening to their favorite playlists – even more than on pre-pandemic days. Wouldn’t it be interesting to find out what your peers are listening to? If there’s a new trend among the people in your group? If anybody has found a new musical gem? Or rediscovered a guilty pleasure from Dolly Parton?
PROTOTYPE - Find out what’s on the headphones (and minds) of your colleagues.
Introducing “G&P Hausmusik”.
We came up with a tech solution for this human need. „G&P Hausmusik“ is a web service that invites colleagues to register their Spotify accounts. When completed, the Hausmusik web app has access to the tracks they are playing. The tracks and all related data is stored anonymously.
The beat and energy of the agency.
Thanks to Spotify we know so much more about a track than just its title and artist. For years, the world’s most renowned streaming service has accumulated terabytes of data for its albums, tracks and artists. Luckily, it reveals small portions of it to users who ask kindly via an API. This made it possible for us to calculate the agency charts or find out the weirdest and most interesting music genre played.
The beat and energy of the agency.
Thanks to Spotify we know so much more about a track than just its title and artist. For years, the world’s most renowned streaming service has accumulated terabytes of data for its albums, tracks and artists. Luckily, it reveals small portions of it to users who ask kindly via an API. This made it possible for us to calculate the agency charts or find out the weirdest and most interesting music genre played.
Explicit: Spotify scans and flags titles and lyrics for explicit content. “Hausmusik” adds them up.
Daily and weekly charts: We count every time a track is played by our colleagues. This is the basis for our ad-hoc charts for the last 24 hours and for the less dynamic weekly agency charts.
Beats per minute: Spotify did the math for us and measured the speed of each song in bpm. We just calculate the mean value of today’s tracks to get a feeling for the agency’s beat.
Genres: Artist and their tracks are assigned to fine gained genre classifications. If you are examining these labels closely, you find funny and witty descriptions – from „Swedish Dancehall Metal“ to „Conscious Hip Hop“.
Explicit: Spotify scans and flags titles and lyrics for explicit content. “Hausmusik” adds them up.
Daily and weekly charts: We count every time a track is played by our colleagues. This is the basis for our ad-hoc charts for the last 24 hours and for the less dynamic weekly agency charts.
Beats per minute: Spotify did the math for us and measured the speed of each song in bpm. We just calculate the mean value of today’s tracks to get a feeling for the agency’s beat.
Genres: Artist and their tracks are assigned to fine gained genre classifications. If you are examining these labels closely, you find funny and witty descriptions – from „Swedish Dancehall Metal“ to „Conscious Hip Hop“.
Backlog: The music data hipster.
Spotify’s deep dive into data started 2014 with the acquisition of the music intelligence service “The Echo Nest”. Echo Nest has 10 years of experience in sourcing music data and telling creative stories around it. The company invented the “Pocket Hipster”, a smartphone app featuring a jerk with a mustache, a handcrafted bike and a bowtie. He took your favorite playlist, made fun of its mainstream taste and recommended little-known alternatives. Most of the music data you find at Spotify today has its origins in Echo Nest. The most common place you can experience Spotify’s music knowledge today are your weekly recommendations based on your listening habits. It’s a well-balanced combination of music data, music editor’s input and collections of other listeners. If you want to dig deeper, it’s worthwhile listening to Gustav Söderström, chief R&D officer at Spotify HQ.