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Data Analysts Attempt To Predict World's Largest Music Vote, Again

Posted by Unknown on from the manufactured-tastes-prove-easy-to-predict dept.

littlekorea writes "Data analysts in the U.S. and Australia have come up with alternative means to predict the world's largest music vote, Triple J's Hottest 100. The Warmest 100 was close to spot on last year after analysts mined data from social posts auto-generated during the voting process. This year, with that avenue shut off, they relied on data extracted using the Instagram API, among others, and hope to achieve similar results."

6 of 41 comments (clear)

  1. Approximately 10% of the votes by stoborrobots · · Score: 4, Informative

    There were fewer than 200,000 votes cast last year - they've sampled close to 10% of the actual votes, so I'm sure they'll have a reasonable approximation of the final result...

    --
    "Go to CNN [for a] spell-checked, fact-checked summary" -- CmdrTaco
    1. Re:Approximately 10% of the votes by abhi_beckert · · Score: 5, Informative

      That doesn't sound right.

      It depends whether you consider a "vote" to be a song choice, or a person who voted.

      Voters submit a list of their favourite handful of songs, they don't pick one. Triple J usually picks the number of song submissions, not the number of people who voted, since it's the songs themselves that they count.

      Fairly impressive for a country with a population of ~23M.

      A lot of the votes aren't by australians. Triple J streams worldwide for free and they have extremely good taste in music. Their charter requires, by law, that they do not have any ads except to promote music and culture, which means they promote music and festivals that they think are interesting, but don't collect any revenue for it.

      So there are plenty of people around the world who tune in.

      The event is several hours long, and it takes place on a national public holiday when everyone is off work. I've been invited to more than one party, to spend the whole day listening to music, drinking beer, eating bad food and trying to find some shade and/or water (bloody hot here this time of year!).

  2. Re:Don't take the purple acid by Z00L00K · · Score: 2, Funny

    Or watch the European Song Contest, which is about the same thing.

    --
    If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker would destroy civilization.
  3. Re:Winner! by jonwil · · Score: 2

    Given the kind of music Triple-J plays (and the kind of people who are likely listen to it instead of the mainstream commercial stations) I highly doubt any of the Top 100 winners are going to be manufactured mass-marked over-hyped pop crap.

  4. Normally makes sense, but ... by dbIII · · Score: 2

    The radio station in question mostly broadcasts material that does not have much advertising money or promotion from the industry behind it.

  5. Re:Winner! by Gumbercules!! · · Score: 2

    I'd fully refute that. Triple J is barely recognisable to me, these days, and I was 100% immersed in the music scene in the 2nd half of the 90's. It's all dance and rap now - a very different sound. It's not "wrong" or "worse" but to claim it's in anyway oriented at the 30 something's, like me, is way off; it's just aimed at people who are younger than I am. It's aimed firmly at the uni student age, and always has been. Even their news articles lead with stories like rises to student fees, etc.