The Skip. How the “Skip Track” button influenced music consumption patterns
Hello, Habrazhiteli.
Try to remember how many times you pressed the Skip button today?
The button to skip the track is almost everywhere where we get audio content. She is so familiar that we can easily recognize it even in complex forms. Skip has become a daily occurrence for a modern music consumption culture. But how deep is it rooted? Let's try a peek.
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In this research article, you'll learn about people's behavior when it comes to skipping music. Find out how often people skip music, whether demographic data affects people's habits in skipping music, which artists and genres are more or less encouraged to press the Skip button, and much more.
The study was conducted by the head of the Echonest development, his team has been analyzing music for about ten years using an impressive range of parameters. Echonest is now a new division of Spotify .
In the days when I reached maturity musically - we were still listening to records - listening to music was something different from what exists today. For example, if you didn’t like playing music, you had to get up from the chair, go to the player, gently lift the tone arm and move the needle to the next track. You had to make an effort to save yourself from listening to three minutes of bad music. Only the most terrible songs were worth all those gestures to switch.
Today, with our trendy iPhones and cloud music subscription services, it’s easy to rewind a non-liking or boring track. Just press the button and you listen to another song. Now the Skip button is an integral part of the whole process of enjoying music. Don't like the song? Let her through. Never heard a song? Let her through. Only recently listened to this song? Let her through. Skipping plays a role even in how we pay for music. In most interactive music services, to get complete freedom and the right to skip any song, you need to have Premium Subscriber status, otherwise you will be limited to about 5-6 passes per hour.
I was wondering how people use the Skip button, so I spent a lot of time studying in detail the statistics of how Skip is applied. For this study, I plunged into Spotify, where the guys built a terrific infrastructure for a huge amount of information, through which it is easy to get an idea of the billions of music tracks. I learned billions of playlists from millions of unique listeners from around the world.
Here are some numbers. First, let's take a look at how often a song is skipped during the first five seconds of playback. I call it quick passes. The likelihood that the song will be squandered during the first five seconds, reaches a staggering 24.14% . Almost a quarter of all songs are rewound in the first five seconds. The likelihood that the song will be rewound within the first thirty seconds, reaches 35.05% . The chance that a song will be missed before it ends is amazingly high - 48.6% . That is, the chances that the song will be heard to the end - almost 50/50 .
The following chart shows average skip scores for millions of listeners and billions of plays. The diagram shows a dramatic decrease in the number of listeners at the beginning of the track, when most of them decide whether to rewind the song. Then comes a slower, but steady decline in the number of listeners, until we reach the end of the song, where about 50% of the listeners remain.
The following chart shows average skip scores for the first 60 seconds of composition. Here you can see that most of the passes occur during the first 20 seconds, after which the level drops, but does not disappear to the end.
We can also calculate the total level of skips for one listener. That is, the average number of passes by one listener for one hour.
Average listener / skips per hour - 14.65
On average, the listener skips once every four minutes. It really is a lot.
Who rewrites songs all the time? Is it true that different listeners rewind music in different ways? Let's get a look.
The level of passes of female students - 45,23%
Apparently almost nothing depends on the floor.
The level of omissions on a mobile phone is 51.1%
When we are at the computer, we usually listen to music longer and rewind less, but on a mobile device we are more involved in the process of interaction with our music.
This chart reflects the level of skips relative to the age of the listener. It shows that young listeners skip the most - more than 50%. With age, this level is reduced, reaching its lowest point in about 35%. Interestingly, the level of passes again begins to grow among people who are well past 40 or just over 50. I have a couple of ideas about why this can happen. The first theory is related to how much free time a person has. Teens rewind more, because they have more opportunities to edit their musical flow, while the thirty-year-olds, with their families and endless work, cannot devote so much time to music players. The second theory proposed by Spotify analyst Chris Tynan explains this by the fact that children use the accounts of their parents.
The following diagram shows the features of skipping songs for one day. To create this chart, I studied the behavior in the field of listening to music of the British (who are very conveniently located in the same time zone) for several weeks.
The diagram says that the level of skips is minimal when people least pay attention to music, that is, during sleep or work. The indicators peak in the morning when people start the day and get ready for work, as well as at the end of the day when they return home or chat with friends. The diagram shows when people pay special attention to carefully monitoring their musical environment.
In the following diagram, the level of skips is intertwined with the average value of the number of plays. It is interesting that differences in the number of skips do not affect in any way when music is listened to the most. The number of plays stably and even grows by the end of the day. While the number of skips is constantly changing.
This chart shows the average level of skips by day of the week. Again demonstrating that he is taller at the weekend, when people have free time to watch the music and rewind unusable tracks.
The skip button really changed the way we listen to music. She plays an important role in our interaction with her musical environment. When we are more involved in music, we make more passes, and when music only serves as a background, when, for example, we work or have a rest, we rewind much less frequently. When we have more free time, for example in our youth, or on weekends, or when we get home from work, we skip more tracks. Because it is at this time that we pay more attention to music. Personally, I was very surprised at how often we tend to skip. On average, we miss every second song we hear.
Skips have become an integral part of how we consume music. Therefore, it is not surprising that the “unlimited passes” became the chip that forces people to subscribe to the Premium account. This may also be the reason why people switch from one service to another, when the first does not offer the possibility of unlimited passes even on a Premium subscription.
At the spring Yandex Tolstoy Camp, we launched a music service for personal music selection. Thanks to the knowledge gained, we have learned to constantly conduct experiments. With skips as well. We measure all the actions of our listeners, and we managed to understand the difference between listening patterns during the first and subsequent sessions. New users almost always differ in their behavior from users who have returned for a new portion of music. More precisely: on the first day of exploring the service, the user wants to make sure that the music is selected relevant. For this, people skip a lot. Up to 95% of the tracks in the first session, people listen for less than 5 seconds. Users look at the covers, try to understand for what connections these tracks appeared in the playlist and decide whether they need a service or not. As a rule, these are 20-60 skips. If the selection mechanism works relevantly, then people return. In our case, this is 28% on the second day and 9% on the thirtieth day. Summary: in all sessions after the first people skipyat much less.
Our most popular case is quiet music (great for work), and those who skipped tracks on the first day, for the most part, change the approach to listening in the following days. Many simply turn on the music and switch the tab. Then they listen to music in the background, which means they skip much less often. This fully confirms Paul's conclusions that during work, people tend to “disconnect” from music, it is perceived as an even background, if it is chosen correctly. You can learn more about comparing skips with likes in our blog.
When we limited the number of skips on the first day, we saw a huge dump of users after the notice that the skips were over and we had to pay. Moreover, the return of users also significantly rolled down.
Conclusion
You can not limit people in wanting to check the value of the service. Moreover, you cannot ask for money at this stage. As a result, we removed the restriction, because people lost the desire to use a service that they did not have time to understand. Conversion to payment has grown within the margin of error. Multiple growth or recession conversion was not.
Now we are thinking of conducting the same experiment with skip restriction, but in the third or fifth session, that is, when the listener has already figured out why he needs our service. Taking this opportunity, I would like to ask you how you feel about this kind of mechanics?
Suppose you have already seen that the service plays quite relevant music for you and decided to return, but you are suddenly asked to pay a subscription after the 10th skip in an hour. How do you react to this?
Try to remember how many times you pressed the Skip button today?
The button to skip the track is almost everywhere where we get audio content. She is so familiar that we can easily recognize it even in complex forms. Skip has become a daily occurrence for a modern music consumption culture. But how deep is it rooted? Let's try a peek.
')
In this research article, you'll learn about people's behavior when it comes to skipping music. Find out how often people skip music, whether demographic data affects people's habits in skipping music, which artists and genres are more or less encouraged to press the Skip button, and much more.
The study was conducted by the head of the Echonest development, his team has been analyzing music for about ten years using an impressive range of parameters. Echonest is now a new division of Spotify .
In the days when I reached maturity musically - we were still listening to records - listening to music was something different from what exists today. For example, if you didn’t like playing music, you had to get up from the chair, go to the player, gently lift the tone arm and move the needle to the next track. You had to make an effort to save yourself from listening to three minutes of bad music. Only the most terrible songs were worth all those gestures to switch.Today, with our trendy iPhones and cloud music subscription services, it’s easy to rewind a non-liking or boring track. Just press the button and you listen to another song. Now the Skip button is an integral part of the whole process of enjoying music. Don't like the song? Let her through. Never heard a song? Let her through. Only recently listened to this song? Let her through. Skipping plays a role even in how we pay for music. In most interactive music services, to get complete freedom and the right to skip any song, you need to have Premium Subscriber status, otherwise you will be limited to about 5-6 passes per hour.
I was wondering how people use the Skip button, so I spent a lot of time studying in detail the statistics of how Skip is applied. For this study, I plunged into Spotify, where the guys built a terrific infrastructure for a huge amount of information, through which it is easy to get an idea of the billions of music tracks. I learned billions of playlists from millions of unique listeners from around the world.
What is Skip?
For this study, I defined the pass as any listener switch to a song before it ended. This can be either directly pressing the “Skip” button, or the intention to find another song, or pressing a particular song in the playlist while the previous one is still playing. Whatever the reason, if a person does not listen to the song until the end, I call it Skip.How often do people miss?
The first and main question that needs to be answered is: how often do people click the “Skip” button? What role do gaps play in our listening to music, given how easy it is to squander now? Answer: A huge role!Here are some numbers. First, let's take a look at how often a song is skipped during the first five seconds of playback. I call it quick passes. The likelihood that the song will be squandered during the first five seconds, reaches a staggering 24.14% . Almost a quarter of all songs are rewound in the first five seconds. The likelihood that the song will be rewound within the first thirty seconds, reaches 35.05% . The chance that a song will be missed before it ends is amazingly high - 48.6% . That is, the chances that the song will be heard to the end - almost 50/50 .
| Skipped over | Probability |
| First 5 seconds | 24.14% |
| First 10 seconds | 28.97% |
| First 30 seconds | 35.05% |
| Until the end of the song | 48.60% |
The following chart shows average skip scores for millions of listeners and billions of plays. The diagram shows a dramatic decrease in the number of listeners at the beginning of the track, when most of them decide whether to rewind the song. Then comes a slower, but steady decline in the number of listeners, until we reach the end of the song, where about 50% of the listeners remain.
The following chart shows average skip scores for the first 60 seconds of composition. Here you can see that most of the passes occur during the first 20 seconds, after which the level drops, but does not disappear to the end.
We can also calculate the total level of skips for one listener. That is, the average number of passes by one listener for one hour.
Average listener / skips per hour - 14.65
On average, the listener skips once every four minutes. It really is a lot.
Who rewrites songs all the time? Is it true that different listeners rewind music in different ways? Let's get a look.
Gender signs
Male student admission rate - 44.74%The level of passes of female students - 45,23%
Apparently almost nothing depends on the floor.
Based on the platform
Level of passes at the computer - 40.1%The level of omissions on a mobile phone is 51.1%
When we are at the computer, we usually listen to music longer and rewind less, but on a mobile device we are more involved in the process of interaction with our music.
By age
This chart reflects the level of skips relative to the age of the listener. It shows that young listeners skip the most - more than 50%. With age, this level is reduced, reaching its lowest point in about 35%. Interestingly, the level of passes again begins to grow among people who are well past 40 or just over 50. I have a couple of ideas about why this can happen. The first theory is related to how much free time a person has. Teens rewind more, because they have more opportunities to edit their musical flow, while the thirty-year-olds, with their families and endless work, cannot devote so much time to music players. The second theory proposed by Spotify analyst Chris Tynan explains this by the fact that children use the accounts of their parents.
When do people rewind the most?
The following diagram shows the features of skipping songs for one day. To create this chart, I studied the behavior in the field of listening to music of the British (who are very conveniently located in the same time zone) for several weeks.
The diagram says that the level of skips is minimal when people least pay attention to music, that is, during sleep or work. The indicators peak in the morning when people start the day and get ready for work, as well as at the end of the day when they return home or chat with friends. The diagram shows when people pay special attention to carefully monitoring their musical environment.
In the following diagram, the level of skips is intertwined with the average value of the number of plays. It is interesting that differences in the number of skips do not affect in any way when music is listened to the most. The number of plays stably and even grows by the end of the day. While the number of skips is constantly changing.
Schedule of passes by day of the week
This chart shows the average level of skips by day of the week. Again demonstrating that he is taller at the weekend, when people have free time to watch the music and rewind unusable tracks.
Conclusion
The skip button really changed the way we listen to music. She plays an important role in our interaction with her musical environment. When we are more involved in music, we make more passes, and when music only serves as a background, when, for example, we work or have a rest, we rewind much less frequently. When we have more free time, for example in our youth, or on weekends, or when we get home from work, we skip more tracks. Because it is at this time that we pay more attention to music. Personally, I was very surprised at how often we tend to skip. On average, we miss every second song we hear.
Skips have become an integral part of how we consume music. Therefore, it is not surprising that the “unlimited passes” became the chip that forces people to subscribe to the Premium account. This may also be the reason why people switch from one service to another, when the first does not offer the possibility of unlimited passes even on a Premium subscription.
Experiment from the author of translation
At the spring Yandex Tolstoy Camp, we launched a music service for personal music selection. Thanks to the knowledge gained, we have learned to constantly conduct experiments. With skips as well. We measure all the actions of our listeners, and we managed to understand the difference between listening patterns during the first and subsequent sessions. New users almost always differ in their behavior from users who have returned for a new portion of music. More precisely: on the first day of exploring the service, the user wants to make sure that the music is selected relevant. For this, people skip a lot. Up to 95% of the tracks in the first session, people listen for less than 5 seconds. Users look at the covers, try to understand for what connections these tracks appeared in the playlist and decide whether they need a service or not. As a rule, these are 20-60 skips. If the selection mechanism works relevantly, then people return. In our case, this is 28% on the second day and 9% on the thirtieth day. Summary: in all sessions after the first people skipyat much less.
Our most popular case is quiet music (great for work), and those who skipped tracks on the first day, for the most part, change the approach to listening in the following days. Many simply turn on the music and switch the tab. Then they listen to music in the background, which means they skip much less often. This fully confirms Paul's conclusions that during work, people tend to “disconnect” from music, it is perceived as an even background, if it is chosen correctly. You can learn more about comparing skips with likes in our blog.
When we limited the number of skips on the first day, we saw a huge dump of users after the notice that the skips were over and we had to pay. Moreover, the return of users also significantly rolled down.
Conclusion
You can not limit people in wanting to check the value of the service. Moreover, you cannot ask for money at this stage. As a result, we removed the restriction, because people lost the desire to use a service that they did not have time to understand. Conversion to payment has grown within the margin of error. Multiple growth or recession conversion was not.
Now we are thinking of conducting the same experiment with skip restriction, but in the third or fifth session, that is, when the listener has already figured out why he needs our service. Taking this opportunity, I would like to ask you how you feel about this kind of mechanics?
Suppose you have already seen that the service plays quite relevant music for you and decided to return, but you are suddenly asked to pay a subscription after the 10th skip in an hour. How do you react to this?
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/235467/
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