Last year, I had the unfortunate experience of losing all my playlists when I switched from Apple Music to Spotify. To me, playlists are important. They’re snapshots of a time in your life; maybe your summer of 2016 had a certain soundtrack to it. But, traditionally, music streaming services don’t make it easy to take playlists with you to other platforms.
So you can imagine how excited I was to see that Apple Music created a new playlist transfer tool through the Data Transfer Initiative (DTI), a group founded by Apple, Google, and Meta to create data portability tools. Europe’s Digital Markets Act requires these designated ‘gatekeepers’ to fund transfer tools as part of a broader remedy to Big Tech’s strategy to lock users into their platforms.
Finally! Except there was one big problem. The tools don’t work with the world’s most popular music service, Spotify, which seemingly didn’t catch the data portability wave (or maybe a regulator isn’t telling them to). The DTI’s tool only transfers between Apple Music and YouTube Music, making it a lot less useful for most people.
The DTI’s executive director, Chris Riley, is fed up with Big Tech’s lock-in policies as well. He’s been trying to get more companies to come to the negotiating table and make their services more portable.
"We’ve kind of gotten baked into this world where we’re so used to using these platforms that we don’t think about how they’re holding us back," Riley said in an interview. "We need to change that, and the way we can do it is by making data transfer easy and seamless."
The Rise of Soundiiz
In 2012, a small startup called Soundiiz was born out of frustration with the music streaming industry’s lack of support for playlist transfers. The company’s founders, Mathieu Houlecoeur and Laurent Bègue, were musicians themselves and had experienced firsthand the pain of losing their playlists when switching between services.
"We realized that there was no easy way to transfer your playlists from one service to another," said Houlecoeur in an interview. "We decided to create a solution that would make it simple for users to take their music with them, wherever they go."
Soundiiz’s platform uses advanced algorithms to detect and match tracks between different music streaming services, making it possible for users to transfer their playlists without having to manually add each song.
Over the years, Soundiiz has grown in popularity, helping millions of people transfer more than 220 million playlists. The company has never spent a dime on marketing, according to Houlecoeur, but he says they’ve always had a strong online presence and have benefited from good search engine optimization (SEO).
"If you searched Google for ‘how to transfer Deezer to Spotify’ in 2012, there was no answer," said Houlecoeur. "So Soundiiz became the first result on Google Search when we came out, and since then, we’ve maintained a great rank in SEO."
The Music Streaming Wars
But despite its success, Soundiiz is not without its challenges. The company faces stiff competition from music streaming services themselves, which have started to offer their own playlist transfer tools.
Spotify, for example, has launched a feature that allows users to export their playlists as CSV files, but this process can be cumbersome and time-consuming. Apple Music’s DTI tool is also limited in its scope, only transferring playlists between Apple Music and YouTube Music.
"It’s unlikely any of them are going to promote playlist transfer services like Soundiiz any more than that," said Houlecoeur. "But we’re not afraid of competition. We believe that our platform offers a better user experience and is more comprehensive in its features."
The Future of Playlist Transfers
As the music streaming wars continue to heat up, it’s clear that playlist transfers will become an increasingly important feature for users. With Soundiiz leading the charge, it’s likely that we’ll see more innovation in this space in the coming years.
But what does the future hold for Soundiiz? The company has already achieved significant success, but its founders are not satisfied with resting on their laurels.
"We’re constantly looking for ways to improve our platform and make it easier for users to transfer their playlists," said Houlecoeur. "We believe that there’s still a lot of work to be done in this space, and we’re excited to see what the future holds."
Conclusion
The music streaming wars are far from over, but one thing is clear: playlist transfers will become an increasingly important feature for users. With Soundiiz leading the charge, it’s likely that we’ll see more innovation in this space in the coming years.
As a user, you have a choice to make: do you stick with your current music streaming service and risk losing your playlists when you switch, or do you take control of your music by using a platform like Soundiiz?
The answer is clear. With Soundiiz, you can transfer your playlists seamlessly between services, without having to worry about losing your favorite tracks.
So why wait? Give Soundiiz a try today and start enjoying the freedom of taking your music with you wherever you go!