Slashdot Mirror

Now, what we need is some sort of powerful mechanism for allowing people to be introduced to music they'd like, but don't know the name of. I've often thought a moderation-style system similar to what Slashdot has would be useful.

There's a few groups out there trying, but it's really a difficult thing to do. One attempt (that I wasted a lot of time on ARGGG!) was Band-Mates.com. It was basically a review exchange for Mp3.com artists. You would review and rate songs from 1-5, in exchange for other artists doing the same with your songs. The more you review, the more reviews you get. Sounds good?

But there were some big problems with it:

1. For starters, I think the main creator guy got in a bit over his head. The site was always really buggy and it's never really been fixed. He didn't foresee the site growing so quickly, and it didn't scale very well.
2. The site desperately needed a meta-moderation system. I would get reviews that said something like "Your song is rubbish." How helpful is that? And the next review might be really positive. A meta-mod system would make the signal:noise ratio a lot more manageable.
3. (Related to 2) It was too easy to write terrible reviews. There were no consequences for writing bad ones. The review page asks you to write at least 25 words, but it doesn't check to make sure that you did.
4. It would be nice if you could link to your songs anywhere, not just Mp3.com. They only let you have a few song for free anyway. And only mp3 files allowed. Linking to an ogg on my personal website would be a good way to introduce random music lovers to better, more open formats.

Emergent Music was another one that didn't seem to be going anywhere. Sigh.

It appears to be about the situation where people bid for ad space. Emergent Music does that. A lot of sites do, it arguably includes the phenomenon of "text ads" such as are used on Kuro5hin. One thing that is important to keep in mind. This isn't a patent, but a published application. The patent has not been issued or approved by the PTO. However, once a patent is published, companies that would infringe if it were issued can be contacted, and if they continue to use the claimed matter, can be sued for damages retroactively when it is issued. The patent was applied for on October 8, 2002. It seems obvious that there was plenty of prior art. I don't know, though, whether the patent "takes priority" from some earlier application such as a provisional patent application. I'm not sure whether the online publication mechanism normally makes that information available. As I get more info I'll post it to my blog.

A google search for "music recommendations" turned up some interesting online tools to find music you might like.

ListenUp

Emergent Music

The Library Blog

Otherwise I recommend using google to search for bands that you do like, browse through the listings and you're sure to turn up something you might like. Then search for it on P2P, and if you like it, buy it. Simple.

In general, I find using any of these sites, including and especially MP3.com, to find decent music you haven't heard elsewhere is a ton of work. I continue to contend that, when someone comes up with a decent business model, services which suggest new music will make more money than companies which sell music. I have yet to see one that I think actually works. This is a difficult task: music is an intensely personal decision and relying on suggestions of others takes trust. I really wonder what ever happend to firefly, and the host of other sites that purported to use neural networks to suggest music based on you rating stuff you know you liked. I think these agent based approaches are more likely to succeed than something like a web log or zine.

This is something bands could do for free or charge a nominal fee for access to MP3s for.

While it may feel like you're giving away the product for free, I'd be much more inclined to checking out a gig passing through town if I had already heard sample shows and knew it'd be worth my while attending.

Matt
EM

I would write up a reocmmendation on Emergent Music (or send them a CD so they can write one up). Word of mouth is great.