Napster Unveils Interactive Playlist Generator with a GIPHY Twist

SEATTLE, March 15, 2017 — There’s a lot of controversy surrounding the pronunciation of “GIF” but one thing is for sure: We can’t live without them. If you’re like me, you can’t live without music either. So, when I heard about Napster’s new GIPHY integration, my reaction could only be described as one of the top ten reactions in GIPHY’s “Excited” category.

gif by Napster

In addition to the GIPHY integration, which marks the first GIF functionality in a music streaming service, Napster also unveiled a new playlist generator today. Napster’s Interactive Playlist Maker features custom playlist recommendations with a simple “Tinder-like” swiping functionality to add or pass on recommended songs. GIFs and swiping right—could there be a more modern way to build a playlist to fit every mood?

gif by Napster

“At Napster, we’re focused on making playlist building and sharing easier, more intuitive and more expressive for each listener,” Mike Davis, Napster’s CEO said. “Early testing showed that Napster subscribers are nearly twice as likely to share playlists featured with a GIF. We’re thrilled to partner with GIPHY to roll out features that help our subscribers bring their playlists to life, and share more music.”

Napster’s interactive playlist maker is designed to make the process of building and editing playlists fun and easy by recommending great contextual music suggestions for a listener’s playlist. As you’re building your playlist, Napster will suggest music to add based on existing tracks in your playlist and listening habits. With a quick swipe to the left, you can reject the song, or with a swipe to the right, you can “match” the song to your playlist. Of course, if you need a break from the swiping action, you can still manually build playlists, as well.

So where does the integration of GIPHY come in? You can now add animated GIFs as cover art for your playlists. Personally, this feels like a natural progression. I love album cover art, but the playlists I create usually fit a very specific mood. With the animated GIFs as the cover art, I can capture that mood perfectly with the suggested GIF or by picking one from GIPHY’s catalog. Napster is certainly making moves designed to meet the demands of our age of personalization and customization.

“There’s a GIF for every emotion, and now there’s also a perfect GIF for every playlist,” David Rosenberg, Director of Business Development at GIPHY said. “We’re excited to work with Napster to bring the power of GIPHY to its users, to personalize their creations and equip their users across the globe with the power of GIFs.”

To celebrate the new playlist features, Napster today launched an exclusive contest for subscribers: listeners who create a playlist using the new playlist builder are eligible to win a free one-year subscription to Napster. Subscribers can enter by posting their playlist on Facebook or Twitter with #NapsterDJ and a link to their public playlist.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go look for the perfect Leslie Knope GIF to add to my playlists.

Berrak Sarikaya is a freelance writer from Seattle, and Paste’s assistant business editor. You can follow her on Twitter @BerrakBiz.