BBC launches Orbit
September 10, 2024
By Colin Mann
BBC R&D has launched Orbit, a new music discovery pilot which it says will allow music lovers to explore a dynamic soundscape of fresh music, drawn from tracks played by local BBC Introducing teams.
“Orbit is our answer for anyone frustrated by algorithms making them feel stuck in a box they haven’t consciously chosen or designed,” explains Principal Software Engineer Mathieu Triay. “Instead, it makes discovering new music a conscious process by allowing you to sample lots of songs quickly and systematically.”
Orbit takes hand-picked tracks from undiscovered artists across all four nations, and groups them by their statistical similarity. Users can then hop across a ‘starfield’ of track samples, following the music until they find something that piques their interest.
“We really want to encourage our audience to discover music by listening, and choose their own path through it,” adds Andrew Wood, Senior UX Designer. “We intentionally provide an abstract representation of this journey with no artist names or images.”
Once users have found an artist they like the sound of, they can seamlessly jump into their music streaming service where they can listen to the track in full or add it to a playlist for later.
“It feels really groundbreaking – an interesting way of discovering new music without feeling like you are discovering new music,” says Kelly Betts, Content Editor for BBC Introducing. “Our local teams work so hard to find great tracks through the uploader, and it’s so exciting for new fans to be able to find what we’ve been playing in one space, based on what they like.”