As a daily user of Spotify, Pandora, Sound Cloud, and YouTube I would like to see the following items added to the product backlog at Spotify. I sat down to type out a few software features suggestions today for you guys and just kept adding to it. Of course all of these ideas are ideal/ do not take into account limitations such as Spotify not being a hardware company.
Product Vision:
Make wearable Spotify Music Streaming devices on an OEM Android platform. Break into the hardware market with the “music lover’s device that makes music sexy again” to take market share from underneath Apple and Beats. Steve Jobs put the speakers in the iMac G3 chassis, and now Spotify can put music streaming directly into headphones.
Music speaks to your soul, body, and mind. It transforms an otherwise ordinary experience into something meaningful and memorable. Music is also beautiful in that the functional and sensory aspects of your musical computing experience are largely independent from all productivity applications. Thus a music application can most easily be de-coupled from standard operating platforms (Win7/OS X, iOS) so long as it preserves the following connectivity features: wifi, bluetooth, 4G, SMS, and social media. This will achieve a more pure/ premium music experience and get Spotify the IPO it deserves.
Wearable Spotify Music Streaming Devices:
Wearable A; music streaming round-face style watch:
- Flagship product and cash cow (device is the same cost as 12 months of Premium and “comes with” 12 months worth of Premium. Wearables and headphones require a Premium account)
- “For when you don’t need all of the distractions from your music experience, the Spotify Streaming devices are better for music than your iPhone”
- Long rechargeable battery life due to liteweight device operations (also include the option to use disposable batteries in a port style similar to micro SD card)
- 4G capable and integrated with your existing wireless data plan (good for long runs and emergency beacons for women and kids)
- Share music with your friends via social media integrations
- Share music with your friends via tap-to-share device-to-device functionality
- Easy access to the “Now Playing” menu with a physical button
- Other buttons like skip, home, and scrub
- Advanced navigation functionality like double tap and two finger tap
- Fitness feature suit
- Yes-No, twenty questions navigation scheme that learns your preferences and helps you find new music
Wearable B; music streaming Android headphones:
- Wrap-around style headphones product line with Spotify Streaming
- Earbud style headphones product line with Spotify Streaming
- No need to bluetooth because the music is already on the headphones
- Left ear skip back button and right ear skip button
- Massive competitive advantage over the iPod shuffle approach
Speakers; music streaming Android speakers:
- Either partner with or produce a substitute for JAMBOX by Jawbone
- Tap your pebble to the speaker to pair it with your device
- Pair multiple devices to one speaker (like an HDMI switch)
Core component of wearables “your pebble” device:
- Any two-tone color combination of rubberized pebble you want
- Acts as a mini-speaker by itself
- Or heady glass opal style, wooden style, stone style and they all look like a massage stone
- Non-rubber buttons that “feel like” their respective button function (play button feels like a play button)
- Device looks like a Spotify logo
- Display glass is the same color as the rest of the device to achieve an edgeless orb effect
- Magnetically attach/ remove the pebble to equipment (watch bands for work, watch bands for the gym, necklaces, speakers, cars, computers, phones)
- Tap pebbles to share songs, playlists, and your phone number
- Install hangouts on the device too so you can text if your phone is on the same wifi
- Audio jacks built in (if you want to use your own headphones), micro hdmi (for other displays), power supply
Software Improvements:
- Feature parity of web based client and application client (things like reordering songs in a playlist and sending songs to spotify users should not require an application)
- Add a Music Finder like Shazam (acqui-hire?) and a music finder button on the wearables
- Radio stations based on your playlists
- Music videos (Vimeo alliance?)
- Audio EQ extension
- Producing/ mixing tools (like GarageBand)
UI/ UX Improvements:
- Several visualizers (like oldschool itunes + a visualizer that listens to microphone inputs)
- Cool album displays (like the original Ipod Touch)
- Easier access to the “Now Playing” menu
- Easily access to the “Recently Played” menu
- Easier access to (less clicks) playlists, shared playlists, public playlists
- More intuitive radio UI
Marketing:
- Premium logos (like LinkedIn Premium logo)
- Make it explicit in your onboarding marketing that you can easily import or find the cloud version of your music. Maybe a wizard that walks you through this? Massive customer engagement from the getgo.
Video Commercial:
- Theme song = “Jackson’s Last Stand” by the artist Ou Est Le Swimming Pool
- Scenes of use cases at work, at the gym, and on the road
- Lines from the Product Vision
- Show how music used to be sexy, vinyl records spinning, jitterbug, big band, beautiful instruments, and opera, but now its scrolling through black and white menus on rectangles phones
Chat me on LinkedIn (Layne Sadler)
