With music streaming, users have gotten used to being at the mercy of algorithms. But French music streamer Deezer is making it easier for its subscribers to make the algorithm work for them.
The company unveiled an update to its mobile experience that doubles down on its emphasis on personalization and sharing to set it apart from larger competitors like Spotify and Apple Music.
“The new features we’re introducing today give users more control over their algorithm, greater flexibility to personalize their experience, and easy ways to share content with their friends, even beyond Deezer,” CEO Alexis Lanternier said in a press release.
Rolling out over the next two months, the update includes enhancements to Deezer’s Flow feature, more options for interface personalization, a monthly Spotify Wrapped-style listening roundup called “My Deezer Month,” and a universal sharing function to share songs with users on other music platforms.
With Flow, listeners can set certain songs as favorites and ban others, effectively steering the algorithm in the direction they choose. From there, they can even tune in to specific “moods,” like “chill,” “sad,” or “party.”
The app’s interface can be personalized as well. Deezer had previously rolled out a personalized homepage to a subset of users, but now all subscribers will have the ability to decide what they see featured on their Favorites page, making it easier to navigate to their preferred tracks, playlists, and albums. Users can further customize the way the app looks with photos and stickers for their playlist covers.
For fans of Spotify’s annual Wrapped feature, My Deezer Month ups the ante with more frequency, providing a monthly breakdown of users’ listening habits delivered in highly shareable form. This feature builds on the strong engagement growth the platform said it saw in 2024 for its annual wrap-up, My Deezer Year. Alongside its full-year earnings in March, Deezer said engagement and social media shares of the feature were up 27% and 75% year over year, respectively, in 2024.
But what fun would these features be if you couldn’t share them? The app’s Shaker feature has long allowed users to make playlists with users across platforms; now they can also share tracks with users on different platforms thanks to Deezer’s unique universal sharing link.
The company has stepped up efforts to stand out in a competitive streaming landscape with both users and artists. In 2023, Deezer was one of the first platforms to adopt what it calls an “artist-centric” payment model that set a minimum number of monthly streams a song needs before it can start earning royalties (Spotify followed suit with a similar policy later that year).
It has also invested in AI tools, including AI-powered playlists and a tool for identifying AI-generated songs, which Deezer says make up roughly 18% of all songs submitted to streaming platforms. So far Deezer is also the only music streaming service to sign the Statement on AI Training that promises not to allow its music data to train AI models.
“Generative AI has the potential to positively impact music creation and consumption,” Aurélien Hérault, Deezer’s chief innovation officer, said in a press release. “But we need to approach the development with responsibility and care in order to safeguard the rights and revenues of artists and songwriters while maintaining transparency for the fans.”
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