ShareMyPlaylists jumps on the badges bandwagon

ShareMyPlaylists, the music social network riding the Spotify wave, has introduced Foursquare-style badges. Only in this case the aim isn’t to add gaming metrics to the service, although it’s possible that some may try to game the system, but to reward users for creating popular and high quality playlists. Or to put it another way, “encourage more sharing and repeat use of the site”, explains ShareMyPlaylists founder Kieron Donoghue.

Those badges on offer include for such things as number of playlist ‘plays’, which borrow from the record industry’s Gold, Platinum and Silver disc awards. So, for example, 25,000 plays see a ShareMyPlaylists user receive the Silver Disc badge. Or various badges for entering the site’s charts as well as a ‘community’ category, which covers being a ‘featured’ playlist or the purposely mysterious ‘Super User’.

The charts themselves have also been given an update, now covering Top 50 Charts for playlists, tracks and members. These are updated every Sunday at midnight and are designed to reflect “the most played tracks/playlists of the last 7 days”. The tracks chart, which shows what songs are popular over the last week, is the kind of data that Donoghue thinks (or hopes) record labels might be interested in.

Lastly, the Playlist Generator, which automatically generates a playlist based on an artist or track, has also undergone some enhancements. Users can now replace individual tracks or add more from artists that they like.

Back in May, ShareMyPlaylists raised a six-figure sum of funding, which by the looks of things continues to be spent on feature enhancements. But for a startup almost solely built on sharing Spotify playlists, it’s hard to see how much more value the site can add.

“We’re very focussed on being not only the best music site in the Spotify ecosystem but a really useful resource for all music fans, says Donoghue. Although for the time being it isn’t clear how.