Spotify is aiming to personalize your user profile more than ever before.
On Wednesday, the music streamer launched “Taste Profile,” a new feature that seeks to give users more say in what the platform recommends. The company says the innovation will allow the platform to better understand your taste, “whether you want to explore beyond your usual interests or fine-tune what you already love.”
In order to explore the new feature, users can tap their profile picture and select Taste Profile. There, they can leave notes to help the platform provide specific recommendations tailored to what they’re hoping to hear more of when using their Spotify app. They can do so by using the “Tell us more” prompt to direct the app with messages. Simple language will allow the app to make better suggestions. You can type directions like “play more country music,” or “find new artists that sound like Lizzo,” or “suggest more true crime podcasts.”
The options are essentially limitless. Users can ask for music recommendations based on artists they already enjoy, explore entirely different styles of music, or seek out new podcasts in a category that’s of interest. Listeners can also use the new tool to exclude certain songs or playlists from your recommendations. It may take a couple of hours for your page to reflect your requests, but Spotify will use a listener’s own input to shape what shows up on their homepage, and in their ears.
Taste Profile (in beta testing) was previously tested in New Zealand and is now rolling out to U.S.-based Premium listeners over 18. However, Spotify first introduced the concept back in March, when co-CEO Gustav Söderström announced the innovation on stage at SXSW, explaining that the change would allow for a more easily personalized platform.
A Spotify announcement at the time said: “Beyond listening patterns, Taste Profile is designed to capture new dimensions of your taste, like your current interests and habits. Maybe you’re training for a marathon and want more upbeat tracks for morning workouts, or maybe you like to listen to news podcasts during your weekday commute.”
It continued: “These signals allow for even deeper personalization. You can shape your Taste Profile as much as you’d like, or leave it and enjoy Spotify as usual.”
Spotify’s latest move to better personalize the platform follows similar recent updates, like the ability to organize playlists into folders, easier editing, and playlist mixing.
Earlier this month, Spotify introduced a feature that lets parents exclude other family members’ music from altering their recommendations, keeping their personal Taste Profiles separate.
