My Take On MySXM – Part 1 – The Concept
Friday readers were treated to a bit of news regarding SiriusXM’s new personalized Radio feature known as MyControl or MySXM. I have spent a good chunk of the weekend putting the service through its paces and have developed my own take on the service. There is a lot of ground to cover here and I thought it best to break up my review into a few components. There is the concept, the technical, and the impact on the equity. I have covered the impact on the equity in an article published on Seeking Alpha. This piece will stick to the concept with another article about the interface to follow.
MySXM – The Concept
The concept with the new MySXM is brilliant. While it may seem simple, the product is actually quite complex. Think of MySXM as individual filters applied to already expertly curated channels and you can begin to visualize what this revolutionary concept actually does. Lets take artist Taylor Swift as an example. She is a little bit country and a little bit pop. From a country standpoint she is not likely to appear on Willies Roadhouse channel, but could be a regular on The Highway. Meanwhile she would not appear on a 90’s channel, but would appear on Sirius Hits 1.
The first part of any music channel is programming that channel with a playlist. In theory that playlist will include songs that fit the description of a channel. A program director will curate a playlist for a channel and if all goes according to plan, listeners will enjoy the channel and listen regularly. MySXM takes that concept a bit further. By example, lets assume that a playlist for this week on the 80’s channel includes 2,000 songs. Being the 80’s it will likely include the tail end of disco, some rock, some punk, some British bands, and some pop. That is a lot of coverage for one channel. A program director is already challenged in creating the perfect experience for listeners. SiriusXM’s MySXM allows the user to drill down into a more personalized experience by using a slide bar to further customize the curated content.
What happens now is that a program director is essentially refining each song on that playlist to apply it to the attributes of the 80’s channel. In addition, a program director at “Classic Rewind” may be taking some of those same songs and categorizing them for that channel. Thus a classic 80’s song like Def Leppard’s “Rock Of Ages” might be in the regular playlist of the 80’s channel this week, and get further identified as a “Top Hits” song, a “More Pop & Rock” song, as well as an “Early 80’s Song” for the customized attributes of the 80’s channel. By sliding the bars on the 80’s channel you can narrow the playlist to include only the songs that fit your mood. Meanwhile the program director at Classic Rewind might categorize the same song as “Familiar”, “Rockin Classics”, and “More 80’s” on that channel. Essentially one individual song can have several attributes assigned to it across several channels. Can you see the complexity? Thankfully, for the consumer the process is simple.
The beautiful thing that SiriusXM has accomplished here is that your music can suit your mood instantly. Let’s say that you like today’s hits, but every once in a while you like to rock out a bit. You can slide a few bars and get music instantly that suits your mood. Tomorrow you can slide the bars again and be back to your usual self. Let’s say you like modern country but do not want very much twang. Slide a few bars and you have a pop/country listening experience. It is an awesome concept.
Let’s consider a service like Pandora for a moment. With Pandora there is software that learns your likes and dislikes. That model begins to learn what you like and do not like. Sounds cool so far. After many weeks of listening Pandora gets pretty good at understanding your usual desires. However, can that channel strike that cord that has you currently wanting more rock because you are in that type of mood? Not really effectively. MySXM can do that instantly for you!
Thus far MySXM is working on 40 channels. It will get to more channels over time, and the company will certainly tweak many things along the way. The key here is that a subscription to SiriusXM just got a lot more valuable for consumers. I have made no secret that I am a fan of Slacker as well as SiriusXM. I oft listen to Slacker when at my desk and at home. For whatever reason I preferred the programming that Slacker assigned to the types of music I listen to. MySXM may very well change my listening habits in favor of SiriusXM. That is a good thing for the satellite radio provider. The company wants more ears listening more often. MySXM will create more brand loyalty by making the service more valuable to listeners. I can actually picture a day when users may want to stream SiriusXM in their cars via the cell phone app so that they can customize in the car as well.
As Charles pointed out in the initial review, the company will be able to learn a lot about what consumers want in a listening experience. MySXM will actually help program directors curate the satellite streamed channels better as well. It is a win/win situation.
One feature I would love to see is a search function that allows a user to type in a song or a band and identify which channels that artist is played on the most. It is a simple feature that will get consumers what they want more quickly. Kudos to SiriusXM for taking on the challenge of creating “CUSTOMIZED CURATION.”
Nice write up Spencer – I’m glad SXM are looking into all of this. My only question is how SXM is going to implement this on its mobile platform? Their iPad and iPhone apps have been quite the failure and most people I know do not use their home computers or laptops to listen to music – they use their iPhones or IPad. This is IMO where this feature should be used and probably will in the future…..I just hope they improve their mobile app performance (see iTunes reviews).
“Their iPad and iPhone apps have been quite the failure…”
Failure? The apps are great. Don’t get bogged down by the reviews on Itunes. There are 2 classes of people that make up the majority of the bad reviews.
1) people who somehow thought the the service would be free and they figure out it is not.
2) the stock bashers who want to scream everything Sirius does is a failure
The Sirius app today is impressive. I fall asleep at night listening to the OnDemand Jay Thomas show from the afternoon before. On the weekends the app is running upwards of 8 hours Saturday and Sunday. I put a Apple Airport server in my house and connected it my home stereo. With Apple Airplay on the Iphone I have complete control of the home stereo volume, anywhere in my house, by reaching into my pocket. I actually find myself watching less TV because of Sirius app. The app is already perfect for me. When they included the MyControl it was just be a HUGE plus.
I am blown away with the beta player. When they announced personalized radio awhile back I had no interest. All the work on Pandora is nonsense. Thumbs up, Thumbs down, click, click, click, click. If someone needs the perfect song for every second of their life then they shouldn’t be listening to any music service. The Mycontrol is great. 3 sliders. Simple. And like Spencer said you can change 1 stations style instantly. I am surprised at how well they pulled it off. I find myself listening to stations I never listened to before. I never listened to 70’s on 7 because the gap of music on that station was too wide. Now I can dial it down to play Rock Hits from 75 – 79. I listened to over a hour last night and never hit the skip button.
Sirius was smart and took a chance going this route. They could have rolled out some lame Pandora knock off and every one would have said big deal. They wanted to do something different and for my money, and my radio needs, it is a superior product.
They have had some very bad initial releases that have forced the ratings down. It not all “stock bashers.” I can remember at least two of their recent releases were total nonworking duds. One time the stream didn’t work and one time the upgrade caused the app to crash. Apparently a great number of reviews are submitted at the time of release so, its hard to claw back from a low rating after a bad release.
Does the rating really reflect the quality of the app? Yes and no. The general experience is better than the rating would suggest but, you should get dinging for a bad release so, fair is fair. Make sure it works before it goes live next time! I will be happy to consult with the QA team (for a nominal fee).
I agree with PuddyC. I listen to Siriusxm on My Iphone all the time at work. I build movie sets and can get 3G or WiFi just about anywhere I work while my Iphone is in my pocket and constantly moving. The app is hardly a failure in my opinion. The only irritation is that sometimes I have to re-activate when I get the “Are You Still Listening” question. “Yes” I’m still listening dammit!!
How do I get the personalization to exclude Fleetwood Mac from every station? That is all I need.
This kind of functionality is not built into the new platform. You should submit feedback and let them know you want it!
When is part 2 of this article coming?