[erikbern]

I built the foundation of this system while at Spotify. While it's true that we looked at a lot of different signal, at the point when I left (early 2015), it was all based on collaborative filtering.

The reason collaborative filtering works so much better than anything else is that given enough data, it will already encompass everything else. If there are reasons why certain users prefer certain sounds, or certain lyrics, those patterns will emerge in the listening data.

The main reason to use any non-CF method is mainly for new content that Spotify doesn't have much listening data for.

I'm no longer at Spotify, but let me know if you have any questions

[capkutay]

I guess this is a less technical question - but what would your advice be to an artist who wants fans of their more famous influences (similar artist) to discover their music? Aside from the obvious (tour, market yourself to popular playlists etc).

Sounds like there's some NLP and web-scraping involved...so would it make sense to come out with blog posts that compare you to the famous artists that influence you?

[erikbern]

only thing you can do to influence the collaborative filtering system is to make users listen to both you and some other artist.

as i mentioned in another reply, CF is really what powers DW

[Mz]

In this context, what does CF and non-CF mean?

Thanks.

[traek]

Collaborative filtering methods vs non-collaborative-filtering recommendation methods.

[Mz]

Thank you.

[real-hacker]

Even musicians need to understand a little bit SEO ;) Software is indeed eating the world.

[fold_left]

Is your listening history from last.fm taken into account when signed into it via Spotify?