Understanding User Requirements for Music Information Services

User studies in the music information retrieval and music digital library fields have been gradually increasing in recent years, but large-scale studies that can help detect common user behaviors are still lacking. We have conducted a large-scale user survey in which we asked numerous questions related to users’ music needs, uses, seeking, and management behaviors. In this paper, we present our preliminary findings, specifically focusing on the responses to questions of users’ favorite music related websites/applications and the reasons why they like them. We provide a list of popular music services, as well as an analysis of how these services are used, and what qualities are valued. Our findings suggest several trends in the types of music services people like: an increase in the popularity of music streaming and mobile music consumption, the emergence of new functionality, such as music identification and cloud music services, an appreciation of music videos, serendipitous discovery of music, and customizability, as well as users’ changing expectations of particular types of music information.