Posted on: October 13, 2006 in Music
SXSW panel idea: The Ultimate Music Recommendation Smackdown
SXSW is still months away, but I can’t help but get excited already. The list on upcoming.org is growing , and panels are being selected using a cool new tool that lets people vote for which panels should be added to the conference.
Speaking of panels being selected, yours truly has proposed a panel for this years SXSW. I know that the panels that do the best, seem to be the ones that are slightly confrontational, a bit tongue in cheek, but still very informative. So keeping that in mind, my proposed panel description is as follows:
With the unprecedented accessibility of recorded music, how can we discover that hot new band when there are millions of possibilities at our fingertips? Fortunately, many companies address this very question. Find out which service creates playlists worthy of a veteran DJ, and which service recommends tracks like an iPod set on shuffle as they battle it out in the ultimate playlist smackdown. Based on audience feedback, trophies will be awarded.
You can vote for my panel here:
http://2007.sxsw.com/interactive/panel_picker/#panel_23
Music recommendation experts out there might might be wondering about a few things. What sample data will be used? What will the audience voting be based on? What metrics will be used? etc… There are definitely a few details to be worked out (if you have any good ideas, please add in a comment on this blog, or email me directly). But the main point of the panel is to have fun and to show SXSW attendees all the great new music recommendation services out there. So to quote the Simpsons, in a sense, everyone is a winner, but in a more specific sense, one service will be the winner ;)
You can go vote for it here!
October 15th, 2006 at 7:21 pm
So voted … however, I think it is important to make a distinction between music discovery tools that help you explore a collection of music, and a playlist generator that is designed to give you a stream of music that should be played together. I believe that they are very different activities. Also, are you limiting this to ‘released’ recommenders - I see you have ’search inside the music’ listed in the tags, but it is not a released product (not that I’m objecting to being included).
Also, it seems like there’s a new music recommender being released every week. Last week it was soundflavor, this week it was qloud. I’m guessing by SXSW there will be another 10 …
October 16th, 2006 at 2:30 pm
It’s a great panel idea, Colin. You got my vote! This, rather ancient (in web 2.0 terms), panel contained some similar discussion points:
http://www.baychi.org/calendar/20060411/
While maybe it’s a little off-topic for this panel, I think it would good to explore how to tie in these music recommendation services with some of the popular blogs/content management systems like drupal, wordpress, and joomla.
October 23rd, 2006 at 10:58 am
Yes, this space is getting hotter and hotter with new services poping up weekly. One that I believe will soon get plenty of attention is Soundflavor DJ (a personal music library companion). It is best for those like me with a larger iTunes collection. If you are one of those people however, it works really, really well. It is the only service, other than Pandora, that generates it’s recommendations based on actual song level musical, lyrical and historical data. It’s got lot’s of great features and looks really good too
.
Anyway, I noticed in the tag section that only four services were listed. I think there should now be five.
December 5th, 2006 at 11:44 pm
Great panel idea! I am hoping to attend this panel or sxsw, but I don’t know if I can get away from my neverending work. I happen to be working on a new drupal site that fits very snugly into the content of your panel. The website will be launched around this time and will have music recommendaiton capabilities in tact. They are already working. I would love to offer you our website as a case study if you would like. I am a fan of bryght and obviously drupal.:)
Cheers,
Aaron
December 5th, 2006 at 11:49 pm
Aaron,
Love to hear more about what you’re doing. Drop me an email if you like…
December 6th, 2006 at 9:12 pm
Hey Colin, this panel should be great! If you need panelests I know a few people (like me - shameles plug) who’d love to help out. Either way, check out Podbop.org if you’ve not, I’m in pretty tight with the guys who built it, one of the editors and it’s a really great recommendation service/blog/etc.