Archive for June 2008
Discovering, sharing and experiencing music in the machine age
Interesting podcast with Lucas Gonze, founder of Webjay, on the evolution of music recommendation from a critic-based system to a machine-based one:
http://itc.conversationsnetwork.org/shows/detail3655.html
Among other things, the conversation touches on whether it is possible for a non-human (e.g. a network, or series of algorithms) to curate recommend music in a meaningful way. The interviewer makes the claim that automated recommendation systems like Pandora seem too mechanical, and both agree that “the voice of the curator animates the playlist.”
In my mind, this debate has less to do with whether machines can make meaningful music recommendations, but whether a networked group of people–enabled through software, the social web, algorithms, etc–can serve this function. Pandora employs musicologists to create the connective tags between different pieces of music, Jango uses the networked effect of passive and active music ratings, as well as editorial content and other things, to do so.
We have been accustomed through history to see the role of the curator inhabited only by an individual; with the social web enabling the creation of “taste” networks of scale, there is no reason why this should continue to be so.
Politics: plus ca change…
Letter from John Adams to Benjamin Rush, February 6, 1805:
“Is the present state of the national republic enough? Is virtue the principle of our government? Is honor? Or is ambition and avarice, adulation, baseness, covetousness, the thirst for riches, indifference concerning the means of rising and enriching, the contempt of principle, the spirit of party and of faction the motive and principle that governs?”
And from later that year:
“My friend! Our country is a masquerade! No party, no man dares to avow his real sentiments. All is disguise, vizard, cloak.”
To tag, or not to tag? Death Metal in Paris.
Whether to allow users to tag or not is something of a debate in the Web 2.0 world; of course, since many web 2.0 companies allow it in the interest of unfettered user-generated content generation, it’s not really a huge debate. But here’s a funny post on the drawbacks of user tags:
