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Crunching the Math On iTunes

markmcb writes "OmniNerd has posted an interesting article about the statistical math behind iTunes. The author makes some interesting observations concerning the same song playing twice in a row during party shuffle play, the impact that star ratings have on playback, and comparisons with plain old random play (star ratings not considered)." From the article: "To test the option's preference for 5-stars, I created a short playlist of six songs: one from each different star rating and a song left un-rated. The songs were from the same genre and artist and were changed to be only one second in duration. After resetting the play count to zero, I hit play and left my desk for the weekend. To satisfy a little more curiosity, I ran the same songs once more on a different weekend without selecting the option to play higher rated songs more often. Monday morning the play counts were as shown in Table 1."

9 of 276 comments (clear)

  1. Kill all arab-bashing rednecks! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic
    Starting from the ones occupying the White House!

    "When they come to ethnically cleanse me
    Will you speak out? Will you defend me?
    Freedom of expression doesn't make it alright
    Trampled underfoot by the rise of the right."

  2. This site rocks! by rathehun · · Score: -1, Offtopic
    Let me be the first to say, this SITE ROCKS!

    How to be http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/guides/guide- display/-/RYNOFNADLYT1/104-6524065-8061536 cool!.

    The ultimate keyboard! http://www.daskeyboard.com/ Well - Maybe we had this earlier.

    Drool....

    /sarcasm R.

  3. Re:iTunes is a monopoly by mr_sas · · Score: 1, Offtopic

    ahh, c'mon, you don't find "They have fought the War on Drugs with skill" funny?

  4. Some useful sites by Guru+Goo · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    Some useful sites??

  5. Re:Ok... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic
    How did that get modded insightful instead of funny?

    Slashdot needs a few new moderation selections including "Wrong". Mods should also learn the difference between "Insightful" and "Informative".

    I'm asked to meta-mod practically everyday and it irritates me to all hell that most moderators are just morons who don't know the difference between "Insightful", "Funny" and "Informative".

  6. Re:Ok... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    Same here. And I only got to moderate once. Before the metamodding started... I suppose I'm just too intelligent to be included in the bunch of drooling modders.

  7. This post lacks elephants! by A+Life+in+Hell · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    This post lacks elephants!

    --
    Commodore 64, Loading up the dance floor!
  8. He also references the "Birthday Paradox" by Vengie · · Score: 1, Offtopic

    For anyone looking on an interesting read about stats (that is actually accurate) check out the Birthday Paradox.

    The whole "good chance that the same artist will come up in the next 50 songs" is actually the same type of math as the Birthday Paradox. (larger set)

    --
    When in doubt, parenthesize. At the very least it will let some poor schmuck bounce on the % key in vi. (Larry Wall)
  9. Re:You wonder why the music industry is mad by swillden · · Score: 0, Offtopic

    I listen to NPR a lot. I'm fairly conservative and I find the liberal bias on NPR annoying, but I find it more pleasant to listen to people I disagree with who are trying to be reasonable and evenhanded (even though they'll obviously fail), rather than people I generally agree with ranting with little concern for truth or accuracy.

    --
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