SiriusXM MyControl Beta Now Live!
The much anticipated music personalization feature from SiriusXM is finally here! With MyControl listeners can now customize their music channels to hear more of what they want and less of what they don’t.
Simply click the shiny new MyControl button located in the top right hand side of the player, adjust the sliders, and click apply.
As you will quickly see, these customizable controls are channel specific. While Classic Vinyl allows you to optimize for depth, era, and region, Faction is setup to edit familiarity, type, and sound. Realizing that one size didn’t fit all is a nice detail and a great catch by the designers — kudos.
The long standing arguments of east cost vs west coast, old vs new, and punk vs. rock are essentially over. No more nasty emails, long running debates on forums, or angry phone calls to you favorite station. You want more punk? Drag the slider towards more punk, sit back and enjoy all the instant gratification of that sweet sweet noise. Me? I slid it towards less punk and haven’t heard one punkish song in over an hour — Perfect!
Once in “MyControl” mode users will also notice the new ability to skip over as many as 5 songs per hour. This essentially means, after you’ve tweaked your personal options, you still only have to like 4 out of every 5 songs played per hour. Who needs Pandora?
Not only do we get 60 different possible combinations of customization per channel but, SiriusXM is getting a whole lot of data from its users. It’s easy to conceive that the company could easily aggregate this data and fine tune existing channels or even create new channels based on popular demand.
While MyControl does allow you to create a more custom experience it does not seem to offer the very specific options of banning and favoriting songs and artists, which have become a fan favorite for users of apps like Slacker. I’m not complaining, just reporting.
The one thing I think the interface is lacking is a direct way to vote against artists or their songs. I don’t necessarily need to fine tune every single last detail of my music, personally, when I use other customization services with new music discovery, I set it on the highest allowable setting but, I would like a direct say in what I consider crappy new music. If you’re going to collect the data, let us tell you what we don’t like and dial it down a bit.
Maybe the easiest way to accomplish this without any changes to the interface is to monitor which songs are most frequently skipped?
It should be noted that currently the new feature is limited to just 40 music channels so, if it isn’t working for you, simply try out a new channel. We have also been told that “MyControl” is a working title but, the feature will likely be called “MySXM” once it officially goes live.
The big question now is, when can we expect to see this new functionality on the mobile iOS apps? No one really knows but, what I can tell you is, the last time SiriusXM rolled out a desktop beta for the new OnDemand feature, the iOS app was released just a few short weeks later. I recommend endlessly staring at your little blue App Store icon until that day comes.
So, log into the beta, check it out, report back and let us know what you think. Is this in fact a homerun or just a ground rule double?
This is a Grand Slam
I am going repost what I put on Twitter:
my early thoughts is this is well played by Sirius. It is not obtrusive. Sometimes less is more. It applies here. Pandora always sucked to me because of all the work and you would still get huge repetition. There was no payoff. Sirius has spent a lot of time creating good stations. Now you can take their work and tweak them. Very impressed so far. The Internet has made music way too hard. I just want listen.The last year of Sirius has been awesome. The product they offer me can’t be touched.
The genius behind the My Control is it will also give Sirius a database on music preferences to apply to satellite feed.
I hope they keep the “My Control” name. The personalization feature is truly under “My Control”…..
This latest development sounds terrific, but as you point out, Spencer, it’s not perfect. However, being software based further tweaking is always possible. Tell me, have the depths of the music libraries been improved along with this initiative?
Now that Pandora has been put in check, a deepening of the music libraries would help to check some of the other IP radio companies.
As far as I know, there has been no mention of increasing the depth of the music library.
BTW, I actually wrote this article.
My apologies to you, Charles. And thanks for the response.
Charles…. Considering your being the founder and “head honcho” of Sirius Buzz, please allow me to suggest you increase your percentage of contributory articles.
The straight forward, unemotional, unbiased, agenda-free information is what most readers are interested in and YOU certainly provide for this. Thanks.
Thank you for the kind words.
Certainly no need to apologize, Spencer does write 90% of the articles at SB.
Don’t see it on my player online!
The link to the beta is at the bottom of this article.
THIS MADE MY WEEKEND.EAST COAST RAP SLIDER YOU KIDDEN ME
Tracking skipped tracks is a great idea. The one place this new system falls short is that, although I can say I want more punk, I cant say I want less NOFX. By adjusting the slider to my taste I might actually end up with more music I’d rather not hear.
I’m calling this a stand up double.
This new feature coupled with their onDemand is the company’s best work done to date. As a subscriber I am thrilled BUT this is NOT a game changer, it’s a solid double.
These kind of incremental improvements should be what we expect from a company like SXM, unfortunately, not much has happened in the past so, what we think is amazing, is actually just par for the course.
Hit me with big changes like this every 6 months and you’ll have me convinced!
Nice post.
So glad they did not copy the typical Pandora method and came up with their own unique customization. This should get a lot of publicity and I think users will love this way of customizing. Slider bars – who would of thought. Genius!
Ohhh, I agree – they should keep the name “My Control”
Charles…now that you have been using MyControl for about 24 hours…can you give us an update! Thanks
I’m not sure there is anything to say that has not already been said. Im definitely getting a better music experience than before. For those of you who do not like dj’s, switching into mycontrol seems to stop all chatter.
If you have any specific questions, I’d be happy to try and answer and maybe even add to this article.
Gave it a look-see and its something that needs some working out, the beta froze my browser, some buffering issues but thats expected with something just rolled out of the door. Noticed its a bit like iHeartRadio’s Custom station customization controls which gives three options “familiar, uncharted and a mix of both” but i get more customization on My Control (i never like Pop rock on Hits 1, so i turned up hot hits, turned on pop rhymitc and throw the teen stuff, turned out perfect for my tastes). now they just gotta roll it out for the comedy channels and im happy
I am trying to find MyControl to adjust my preferences. Where is it?
Its in the top right hand corner of the page/app — its a white “My” icon/button.