Microsoft’s new Web Playlist dismantles traditional “station” listening

Windows 8.1 was released last week, and with it an updated Xbox Music service. Some of the upgrades to Xbox Music are merely usability features that make interactions easier. But one entirely new feature expands the competency of Xbox Music and creates a brand new listening mode.

Called Web Playlist, the function can connect the Xbox Music app to any web page, and play music referenced on that page. To realize the breakthrough nature of this feature, it’s important to realize that actual music does not need to be on the page. Web Playlist is not grabbing existing files and streaming them. Instead, it is analyzing the page, identifying references to artists and bands, and building a playlist based on those references. Any web page — a message board, the comment section of a blog post, a music festival promotion — turns into a relevant streaming music platform.

In effect, Microsoft is positioning Xbox Music to compete against Google Play and iTunes Radio by recruiting the entire web as a dispersed global music service.

Aside from a clever idea and breakthrough underlying technology (provided by The Echo Nest), Web Playlist potentially disrupts consumer behavior. In a year when the online radio/jukebox space has started to seem glutted with overlapping and duplicative services (Slacker copying Songza, Rhapsody mimicking Spotify and Rdio), Microsoft’s new feature separates the user from stand-alone platforms entirely — except for Microsoft’s, of course — and unleashes the listener upon the web at large, its musical potential suddenly unlocked.

Time will tell how compelling Web Playlist is, and whether Xbox Music has enough momentum to lift off. It works only in the Windows 8.1 environment, so its market is sharply constrained by platform. Of course, so is iTunes Radio. Perhaps the question is: when will we see this feature replicated by other services? Microsoft built the app, but the underlying intelligence belongs to The Echo Nest, a provider whose technology layer runs through many music services.

Stay tuned. RAIN spoke with Jim Lucchese, CEO of The Echo Nest, about Web Playlist, how The Echo Nest’s music analysis compares to Pandora, and what The Echo Nest employees listen to in the office. The interview will appear Wednesday.