Talk to app developers, psychologists, or productivity experts, and you’ll likely hear about the concept of gamification. The goal is to offer perks for completing tasks, turning an activity that could be a chore into a fun system with rules and rewards. It’s been used for educational purposes, for changing habits, and now some enterprising folks have turned gamification theory onto music discovery.
This platform is called Tradiio. When you sign up, you’re given a tutorial for a system where listening to songs grants you coins. There are missions and challenges to guide your choices, getting you to explore different genres or lesser-known artists. If you find a track that you like, you can invest your coins in it. Listeners are encouraged to support hot tracks to make more coins back out of the investment. Investments also boost a song’s popularity, and at the end of the month, artists can win rewards for being a top choice. These rewards might be a set at a festival, studio time, or a music video shoot.
It’s an unusual approach to music discovery. Using the missions and challenges to guide people to more songs that they wouldn’t otherwise find is a cool concept. Plus, the idea of turning music’s cultural cache into an imitation stock market is both weird and fun. I was in a folk mood and did find a few artists to follow, but the catalog is pretty small at this stage, so you may have to dig to find a tune you really enjoy. For Tradiio to really take off, it’ll need lots more interest from listeners, performers, and sponsors. The idea is unique enough that I’d love to see it succeed.
I applaud any original concept in our me-too, algorithm-heavy, data-driven, (un)personalized radio industry, so I say good luck to Tradiio. And I mean it. But deep down I can’t help wondering if these guys had too many beers with Billy Chasen one night, and upon waking they’d completely forgotten
how he told them Turntable.fm actually ended?
From the HotSeat,
Tom McAlevey, CEO, Radical.FM