Last week SoundCloud announced the introduction of SoundCloud Weekly, a customized playlist of new music curated to each user’s tastes based on what they’d listened to previously. If that concept sounds familiar, it’s exactly what Spotify’s wildly popular Discovery Weekly feature does. Of course, SoundCloud has a much deeper library than Spotify, so there’s some differentiation there.
This week, Pandora has released The Drop, their version of the exact same thing that Spotify, and now SoundCloud, does. The feature will be available only to their Premium on-demand users.
The construction is slightly different. Initially, it will be seeded with around ten songs on Friday, when most new music is released. Each subsequent week, the same will happen until the full playlist is about 100 songs, at which point it will start cycling songs out.
This is the latest addition to the features of Premium, which Pandora has been pushing to try and grow a revenue stream outside its advertising. However, it’s development seems more like it’s just trying to keep pace with the rest of the industry and doesn’t lose market share to the other streaming services out there. That’s not to say their algorithm is better or worse than anyone else’s, it’s hard to say that for certain. But is the difference enough that people can tell?
Nevertheless, it’s a nice feature if you’re a Pandora loyalist. But the option is always there. And it’s purple, so that’s different.
