Spotify files patent for automatically generating personal playlists

The patent applies to generating playlists based on users’ activity history, and the tool will draw information from the activity record and data defining the context of an action performed. In this way, Spotify’s algorithms can decide on what the user is searching for when they interact with the app.

Additionally, the innovation will generate a personalised playlist with similar musicians in the genre that users have listened to and will also incorporate artists from other genres that they enjoy, if the artists song's overlap with the specific genre.

According to the patent, the playlist “selects a first media object from the media content play history and then constructs an N-dimensional factor vector based on activity records and the intent records associated with the first media object.”

Spotify says the move is an attempt to make social sharing features more relatable to playlist personalisation.

“Many features of the on-demand music selection experience are unavailable as part of the music recommendation experience,'' the patent reads. “For example, features of playlist management, such as the ability to share a playlist, follow a playlist of another user, or save a playlist for offline listening, would typically be incompatible with or disjointed from the experience of a curated radio station.”

“There has yet to be a technical solution for resolving this incompatibility and disjointedness with little or no user interaction. The example embodiment described herein addresses the foregoing challenges by providing methods, systems, and computer program products for periodically generating a personalised playlist of media objects based on a most recent taste profile of a user.”

There are a couple of different use cases presented in the Spotify playlists patent. For example, a playlist may be generated based on the last time its seed song was played. From there, Spotify can continue generating playlists in the background based on the songs that appear in the new playlist.

Playlists are a big part of Spotify’s growing market share globally. However, the app has been widely criticised for its mix of playlists and inaccurate recommendations to users.

Meanwhile, Spotify recently launched Songwriters Hub as part of the company's effort to support the songwriter community. The new platform allows users to find Written By playlists from both established and emerging songwriters, podcasts about the craft, a rotating cast of featured songwriters and cultural moments each month.