Onderzoeksmethoden 2/het werk/2012-13/Group 1

General information

Introduction

Spotify
Spotify is a Swedish company that was established in April 2006 by Daniel Ek and Lorentzon Mark. The name "Spotify" comes from the two words spot and identify. What the company wants to imply is, by using Spotify, a user for example can spot and identify any forgotten song whatsoever. When establishing Spotify, Ek and Lorentzon had the ambition for the users to have access to any desired song through Spotify. Currently the music collection of Spotify is over 13 million and it continues growing daily.

Spotify offers music as a Stream. From a database of millions of user numbers can determine which music they want to hear.

Subscribtions
Spotify offers three types of subscriptions.

• Spotify Open is the free subscription. Every month, users can listen to music free of charge for 10 hours. In this version commercial breaks are included.
  
• Spotify Unlimited is a paid subscription. For € 4.99 a month, the user gets unlimited access to the database of music without advertisements and time limit.
  
• Spotify Premium costs € 9.99 per month. This service provides better sound quality, use on mobile devices and the option to listen to music offline.
  
  

In addition, it is possible to to buy gift cards in the store. These can be exchanged for a Spotify Unlimited or Premium subscription, or for music downloads. Spotify also offers e-cards through the website. This can only be exchanged for a Spotify Premium subscription.

Software
In order to use Spotify, the Spotify music player must be downloaded first. Using this programme, the music can be indexed and played.

Availability
Currently, the complete music service is available in Australia, Finland, France, Great Britain, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Spain, the United States, Belgium, Switzerland and Sweden. Issues with license agreements were the reason why it took so long for Spotify to be introduced in the Netherlands and Belgium. In Belgium, the music service is only available since November 16th 2011.

Spotify & Facebook
The slogan of Spotify regarding to their cooperation with Facebook is "Spotify is the soundtrack to your social life, a new world of music for you and your friends."

Spotify and Facebook have partnered to to expand their services to their customers. For example, the Facebook user can listen to music via Facebook while he / she is surfing on Facebook. For Spotify the cooperation is a good possibility to use social media to attract more users. In other words, a win win situation for both sides.

In Spotify, you can see what your friends are listening to and you simply need to click on the play button to instantly listen to their tracks. According to Spotify, music is being introduced into the user's social life this way.

Motivation

During a brainstorm session, we came up with this topic. Spotify, is becoming increasingly popular and people around the world are using the services it provides. Moreover, we are very curious about the effects that the cooperation of Spotify and Facebook might have on the behavior of the Spotify users. Also it is interesting to find out what effect this cooperation has to the needs of Spotify users to illegally download music. These were the main reasons that have inspired us to do this research. Below is the research question and the related sub-questions that clarify what the scope of the research is.

Research Question

Main research question:
What are the effects of Spotify on how people listen to music?

Subquestions:
Does Spotify (and their social plugins) affect the musical tastes of their users?
Does Spotify affect the moments people listen to music?
Does Spotify have influence on social contacts?
Does Spotify have influence on piracy?

Conceptual model

Using Spotify depends on several factors. We believe that some of these factors are directly related to the way people generally listen to music.

• Playlists/Favorites
  • Related to the taste of music.
• Apps (such as radio, toplists, etc.)
  • Related to the taste of music
  • Opportunity to discover music.
• Social info (all social information/options)
  • Discover music by friends, share your music with friends.
• Account
  • Different account types can influence other purchases (or piracy).
  • Related to the moments people listen to music.

Data collection

We decided that formulating the interviews in Dutch would give the best results in practice due to the fact that this is the native language for (most of) all of those who are getting interviewed.

The results of the interviews will be translated to English so the readability of the research will not get compromised.

Everyone starts interviewing one person so we have three interviews to work out. Probably this is not enough. If not, we can double the interviews to increase the data. In the end, we think the number of interviews (5 or 6) should be sufficient for this research. We would like to see if there are any changes in listening to music. If there are surprising results, it can be used for further research.

Interview Concept

Link naar PDF (betere opmaak): https://www.dropbox.com/s/k6an7qjvf92dur8/Opzet%20Interview%20Spotify%20v3.pdf

Interview Spotify - Onderzoeksmethoden 2
1. Hoe ben je bij Spotify gekomen?
a. Vrienden/Internet/Magazine/etc.?

2. Je maakt gebruik van Spotify, hoeveel uur per week luister je naar muziek via Spotify?
a. Sinds wanneer ben je Spotify serieus gaan gebruiken?
b. (Indien dit binnen de limiet van een gratis account valt) Waarom maar x uur?
c. (Indien de limiet van een gratis account de reden blijkt te zijn)Zou je dus meer naar 
muziek luisteren indien het gratis abonnement van Spotify dit toe zou staan?
i. Wat is de reden dat je niet voor een betaald abonnement kiest terwijl je er 
eigenlijk wel meer gebruik van zou willen maken?
ii. Zou je in de toekomst een betaald abonnement op Spotify nemen en 
waarom?
d. Op welke momenten van een dag luister je naar muziek via Spotify?
e. Luister je ook via een andere muziekspelers naar muziek?
f. Zo ja, wanneer?
g. Zo ja, op welke momenten?
h. Verschilt dit ten opzichte van het eerste gebruik?

3. Kun je omschrijven hoe je voorheen (voordat Spotify bestond) naar muziek luisterde?
a. Tastbaar (CD,DVD,LP,etc.)/Niet tastbaar (MP3,Streaming,Radio,etc.)?
b. Illegaal/legaal downloaden?
i. (Indien de gebruiker aangeeft muziek voorheen te downloaden) Ging het 
hier om legaal of illegaal downloaden of beiden?
ii. Heeft Spotify enige invloed op de frequentie waarmee je download?
iii. (Indien een gebruiker nog steeds download) Waarom download je nog?
iv. Als je de mogelijkheid had om offline naar muziek te luisteren, zou je dan 
nog downloaden, zo ja wanneer?

4. Kun je zeggen dat je door Spotify andere muziek bent gaan luisteren dan voorheen? Zo ja, 
hoe komt dit?
a. Hebben de apps binnen Spotify daar invloed op? Zo ja, hoe?
b. Hebben social media binnen Spotify hier invloed op? Zo ja, hoe?

5. Zijn er nog andere opties binnen Spotify die je gebruikt en waar je enthousiast over bent?
a. Welke?
b. Wanneer gebruik je ze?

Interviews

First, the interview questions compiled on the basis of the previously defined research questions. The researchers have consciously chosen to not send these questions in advance. This decision has been made in order to prevent as much as possible that strategic answers could be given due to the time they then would have to prepare. In advance the candidates are asked some general questions in order to break proverbial ice and to put the candidates to feel at ease. Also, the candidates have been interviewed individually. This last sentence has a twofold meaning. Firstly, this means that the candidates are interviewed separately and at different locations and times (also, these candidates do not know each). Secondly it means that for each interview, only one researcher was present to interview the candidate. To ensure that everything is properly documented, there are audio recordings available of the interviews. These recordings are added as research material. Obviously for recording conversations, the candidates permission has been asked.

Given the time and mobility constraints that apply to the course Research Methods 2we have chosen easily accessible candidates of which we know in advance that they are frequent Spotify users. This way, the selection procedure did not take to long and the interviews could be held quickly.

For a correct sampling this is not the proper method but given the preconditions and limitations of the course this decision has been made. For an exposé of more proper methods, we would like to refer to the discussion section.

Interviews

Interviewer	Interviewee	Audio	Audio length
Ahmed Taha	Candidate 1	[Audio]	25:37
Martijn Liebrand	Candidate 2	[Audio]	13:06
Gijs Mooren	Candidate 3	[Audio]	8:11

Data structuring

Data structuring

Interviewer	Interviewee	First Transcription
Ahmed Taha	Candidate 1	[Transcript]
Martijn Liebrand	Candidate 2	[Transcript]
Gijs Mooren	Candidate 3	[Transcript]

Data analysis

Tags to highlight important data, information about:

Taste
Time
Piracy
Social contacts 
Other issues

Tagging

Interviewer	Interviewee	Tagged Information	Comments
Ahmed Taha	Candidate 1	[Tagged Transcript]
Martijn Liebrand	Candidate 2	[Tagged Transcript]
Gijs Mooren	Candidate 3	[Tagged Transcript]

Staan fouten in deze versie, Ahmed moet versie 1.1 uploaden

Below, an Excel-file is added which includes the analysis results. The first three tabs include the individual analysis of the three candidates. The fourth and final tab includes the overall analysis of all the candidates combined together.

• Analysis results

Overview of all results:

The sum of all the categorized statements of candidate one. The statements were mainly about changes Spotify brings with it. On the topics piracy, taste and social influences the candidate said two things about changes since the use of Spotify. The (/three) statements about when the candidate listens to music were neutral and one was negative. Candidate one said once that the moments of listening not changed. Altogether, the candidate said more about changes since the use of Spotify.

The sum of all the categorized statements of candidate two. Answers of candidate two are more diverse. Only catagories of piracy and time have more statements about changes than statements that say that everything stays the same. Also, the total of all does not show a significant difference between postive and negative statements.

The sum of all the categorized statements of candidate three. There are no statements about things staying the same since using Spotify, but there are some nuanced/neutral thoughts about the usage of Spotify. The candidate said mainly that the way of listening to music changes after the introduction of Spotify. But one statement about Spotify affecting your taste is not enough to conclude something.

The sum of all the categorized statements of all the candidates. All three candidates together said more about changes Spotify brings with it. Especially the three candidates agreed on the subject piracy. You can not conclude the candidates download less since using Spotify. This result only says that they changed their downloading since using Spotify.

Conclusion

The purpose of this study was to look at what effect Spotify has on how people listen to music. We have looked at whether Spotify affects its users music preference. We also looked at its impact on the time and the frequency with which its users listen to music. Subsequently there is examined whether the conjunction of Spotify and social media influences the matters discussed above. Finally, it was examined whether Spotify in any way, affects the download behavior of its users. In order to carry out this study, data was necessary. Data which clearly shows how Spotify users behave in relation to the issues outlined above. In order to gather the required data, the researchers have chosen for interviews as their research tool. Interviews with Spotify users to provide insight into what effect Spotify has on these topics.

The results of the interviews clearly show that Spotify definitely has an effect on the way people listen to music. It was also found that this effect is positive. Spotify has such an influence that its users feel less the need to download (especially when it comes to downloading without paying). With the social plugins, Spotify also has a positive effect on the maintenance of the social contacts of its users. This means that users are more willing to share music with their friends. However, after drawing this conclusion, the question is how representative are the results that we have from our findings. For the nuance and the value of the conclusion and the research in general, we refer to the discussion section.

Discussion

Altogether, this course was very educational. We have learned that it is very important for a researcher to make explicit what it exactly is you wants to study (demarcating boundaries) before you start thinking about your research tool. In our case, the research instrument was conducting interviews.

During the preparation of the interview questions, we found that certain parts of our scope has not been clearly defined. Eventually, we have also made sure that these parts where defined so we could proceed with the preparation of our research tool. We have also learned that it is very important to clearly formulate questions to avoid ambiguity or any kind of misunderstanding. What also is very important, is the formulation of a sensitive question. Initially, we defined 'downloading without paying for it' as illegal downloading and piracy. This proved to be unwise because may scare the candidate and this may affect his / her answer. Moreover, it is not illegal to download and it is not considered to be piracy because downloading is not prohibited in the Netherlands. Provided that it is only for personal use. What is also very instructive but what we unfortunately have discovered afterwards, was the fact that you have to ask your questions as to the point as possible. Also, clearly ask for a concrete answer to prevent the interview from taking too long. This has a negative impact on the time you need to process the interview. Elaboration of interviews; a very time consuming and non-challenging element that is essential for the anchoring of the study results.

In order to increase the adding value of the research and to ensure that the study would be more representative, more interviews should have been held. The limitations of the assigned hours for this course and the time needed for transcribing were the reason that we had only three candidates. The number of interviews and the length of it rather suits a preliminary study than a research which ultimately would give valuable conclusions. Also, we must question the variety of the Spotify users who are interviewed. The three interviewees roughly fall in the same category (students / age) and therefor stand for little variation. It is possible that Spotify users fall especially in this age category, but nevertheless the current number is simply inadequate.

Lastly, we have chosen to categorize the statements of the interviewees into Positive, Neutral and Negative. These categories are very broad, because we have so few categories. In other words: A statement which is a bit Positive falls into the same category as a statement which is extremely Positive. These two statements would have the same value in the transcript. In this way we will lose the value of statements from the interviews. However, we feel that it was not necessary to add more categories. On the way we have handled, we give a fairly overall picture of the changes that Spotify brings with it. The best thing to do is to divide the current categories into subcategories. Positive could form example be divided into very positive and slightly positive etc. Then, these values could also be rated so very positive would have a higher value than slightly positive end so on.

Further Work

This study illustrates that there are probably differences Spotify users and non Spotify users in the way they listen to music. The outcomes of the conclusions of this study are however doubtful. The research could perhaps serve as a preliminary study. Something which can be elaborated more in a full study. Here are some points that will improve further studies on this subject:

• Increased number of interviewees (to a more representative numer in regardts to the concerning population);
• Better sample of interviewees;
• Better approach for conducting interviews;
• Recording of the interview is a must but having two interviewers present at an interview offers even more advantages (the second interviewer could make notes, keep track of the questions that still have to be answered, make sure the answer is sufficient in order to categorize it, etc.);
• Extending categories that are used to classify statements.