SiriusXM's MySXM Personalization Powered by The Echo Nest Comes to Android

Satellite radio service SiriusXM officially launched a new feature on its Android app called MySXM on April 15. The feature, built on The Echo Nest's main offering, has actually been available on the Web player for a few months now and on the SiriusXM iOS app for a few weeks.

The Echo Nest is essentially a music intelligence platform that leverages a database of tens of millions of songs and artists — automatically created using Web crawling — to allow third-party developers and media companies to integrate music data in their products. The company has experienced a fair amount of success thus far, gathering $17.3 million in a financing round back in July.

SiriusXM, meanwhile, boasts over 24 million subscribers to its satellite radio service that broadcasts a wide range of music, talk and news content completely ad-free. Its service can be accessed via the Web, most mobile devices and in many vehicles from major car companies in the U.S. As such, the company's claim that it has more paying subscribers than any other music service is likely accurate.

MySXM brings the power of both of these companies together to provide SiriusXM users with more personalized listening. Initially, the MySXM channel may not sound all that different from the main SiriusXM channels, but over time and with consistent user feedback, MySXM can become more tailored to the listener.

The user feedback is submitted through sliders that offer control over a number of elements; for example, users can choose to hear less or more new music, opt for a harder sound or dial back completely the amount of jazziness they'll hear. This sort of control may seem familiar as it's very similar to Spotify's radio feature, but users can even dictate their preferences with MySXM in advance.

Currently, users can create over 100 variations of 50 SiriusXM channels but the satellite radio company said that it will add more channels to MySXM over time.

“The collaboration between SiriusXM and The Echo Nest has been one of the most interesting, innovative and eye-opening partnerships we’ve entered into,” said The Echo Nest in a statement. “After working with SiriusXM’s music programming and digital product team for over a year, we’re confident this approach will re-shape how music services think about personalized radio.”