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[Changelog] March 24th, 2023

It was a bit of an abridged work-week over here what with a public holiday on Tuesday, but I still managed to smash out quite a bit this week. Props to the rest of the team for working to keep my plate clean 💜

Here are this week's notable changes/features:

Search playlists by artist name

You can now search for playlists that feature an artist of your choice.

Note: This is beta. The underlying code works, but I still need to integrate it into the submission flow in a useful way 🥴

  • This feature has been part of my "wishlist" for a while now, and the other night the underlying formula "clicked" so I whipped it together quick-sticks
  • I intend to integrate this into the "genre match" score to help artists target curators who align with their own similar artists
  • The current version can be accessed as a link in the website's footer (from the homepage)
  • The results are generally pretty good, though they're dependent on the quality of the "fans also like" section for the artist you're looking up, which can at times be dodgy
  • I've written about the importance of keeping this "fans also like" section of your Spotify profile accurate - and this is a space where I think SubmitHub offers a lot of value to artists
  • Results for Bonobo look particularly good

Boosted genres

One of the most important parts of SubmitHub is the "genre match score"

  • The formula is based on a curator's approval rate within that genre relative to their own genres, and relative to peers within that same genre
  • It also factors things like the consistency of their playlists, the moods of the song, lyric languages, or whether it's instrumental
  • The downside with "genre match" is that sometimes a curator's favorite genre also happens to be the one they're most-picky in, which in turn pushes their score down and results in fewer submissions within that genre

Today, that changes! Curators can now choose 2 genres to "boost"

  • As a curator, you'll see a rock ship when you hover over your genres
  • Boosting a genre increases your "genre match" score for that genre
  • The boost does not expire - it stays for as long as you have it enabled (you can "unboost" by clicking the rocket ship again)
  • It does not impact your other genres or bring their score down

Marketplace

At some point I foolishly said that I wanted to finish the Marketplace by the end of March. What a dummy! I'm basically building an entirely new platform from scratch, which means there's a *lot* to do. Still gonna shoot for the stars though. Realistically, you can expect soft launch early April.

Believe it or not though, I'm getting close. This week's progress includes:

  • Allowing a user to select the services they want a "quote" for
  • Submitting their request
  • Allowing the service provider to approve or decline
  • The sidebar navigation / sitemap for the whole Marketplace

Here's what's on the docket for next week:

  • Service provider creates a quote
  • User can approve or deny that quote
  • If quote is approved, it opens a "project" between the two, with room for easy communication & attachments
  • When done, service provider uploads / shares deliverable
  • User gets to approve / ask for revisions / dispute

Miscellaneous

  • &Tilly's settling into her role at the head of our marketing department nicely
  • You can connect with her on our Instagram
  • We busted someone using ChatGPT to write their feedback
  • Grumble grumble
  • It was inevitable, but I've added a bit of code to try and make it more difficult in the future
  • I wrote a nice little script to ensure that the ~10 different servers running various SubmitHub background processes are all happily up and running
  • We added support for Pandora (USA only)