Flo, Which Abolished Real-Time Charts, Introduces 'Personalized Charts'

[Asia Economy Reporter Seulgina Jo] FLO, SK Telecom's music platform that abolished real-time charts, is introducing a personalized chart called the 'Pyeonae Chart' where rankings vary according to user preferences. This move aims to seek alternatives to issues such as music streaming manipulation and chart stacking.

According to FLO on the 21st, the upcoming service update scheduled for early May was planned based on chart operation experience and customer data accumulated over one and a half years since FLO's launch, similar to the abolition of real-time charts and the launch of the FLO Chart in March. Through a feature that reprocesses charts to match user preferences, all 3 million FLO users will be able to conveniently consume charts in a way that suits their individual tastes.

The 'Pyeonae Chart' introduced by FLO is a new preference-based chart reflecting the user's playback history and preferences on the existing FLO Chart. The Top 100 songs are rearranged in order of preference, allowing users to check the latest trends while listening to music in an order that suits their tastes.

The existing Top 100 chart has been consistently criticized for problems such as top-ranked songs dominating users' listening through total plays. Analysis based on playback data of users' Top 100 chart usage by FLO revealed that half of the chart users listen to only the top 3 songs, and 80% listen to about 10 songs, indicating that most users repeatedly consume a small number of songs.

Through this service update, FLO plans not only to consider producing credible charts but also to propose new alternatives for how charts are consumed. Earlier, to avoid unilateral dependence on charts and contribute to a healthy music consumption culture and music industry environment, FLO abolished the hourly real-time chart in March and launched the FLO Chart, which is based on a 24-hour cumulative chart applying AI and machine learning technologies to enhance credibility.

Since the launch of the FLO Chart, FLO has evaluated that credibility has improved with reduced ranking volatility, and users have responded positively, as overall chart plays have increased by about 7%.

Lee Ki-young, CEO of Dreamus Company, the operator of FLO, stated, "Rather than responding primarily to various controversies in the music market, we are focusing on how to grow the market in the long term. While respecting consumers' 'preferences' who favor charts, we aim to help them discover their own detailed 'preferences' within that, thereby increasing the total amount of music listening."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.