Discovery and recommendation apps for music and videos, such as Spotify, YouTube, and TikTok, are big hits.

You just have to have a colossal inventory, and a reasonably good algorithm.

bryanrasmussen 8 months ago | parent | next [-]

Discovery and Recommendation in those apps seem to be features, not the purpose of the app itself.

	▲	8 months ago \| parent \| next [-]
		[deleted]
	▲	taurath 8 months ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		The purpose of the app is to sell ads via engagement, recommendation is at least a partial (majority?) driver of engagement, so it’s part and parcel of the purpose of the app. People want what they’re providing, companies want to sell ads, and increase people’s tolerance of ads. Until the next platform without ads comes out (note - tiktok didn’t have ads almost at all for the first year)

▲

pjc50 8 months ago | parent | prev | next [-]

You can't have a discovery app _that doesn't host the content_.

▲

doubled112 8 months ago | parent | next [-]

Last.fm did it, or did they host content and I've never realized this in 20 years?

▲

bondarchuk 8 months ago | parent [-]

Yeah last.fm was a streaming webradio type thing. You could also scrobble your own mp3s but (as I remember it) the whole point of that was so you could then listen to the stream tailored to your preferences.

Just like Pandora which was also really great for a while.

	▲	diggan 8 months ago \| parent [-]
		> You could also scrobble your own mp3s but (as I remember it) the whole point of that was so you could then listen to the stream tailored That's not how I remember it at all. The biggest features (that at least made me and my friends use it) was that no matter what player you used, it probably had a "Scrobble to last.fm" features (which sadly, seems Spotify at least removed), and then you'd use Last.fm to find new songs to play via your own player. I don't think I remember anyone using the Last.fm radios/playlists, but instead just as a data-browser to find new artists/albums/songs, then play those somewhere else. But this was around 2005 sometime in Sweden, we basically just had Spotify and maybe Grooveshark available for streaming, maybe things typically worked differently elsewhere.

▲

quinnirill 8 months ago | parent | prev [-]

Google and/or IMDb don’t count as discovery apps or not hosting the content?

▲

immibis 8 months ago | parent | prev [-]

The main purpose of these apps is to click on them and watch/listen to some $foo. Not to just tell you what to watch/listen to.