HIGH FIDELITY

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.

The production and consumption of music is different than other forms of entertainment, like movies, books, games or TV. A great deal of high quality music is being produced at any given time for a relatively low cost. Therefore, there is a huge, and ever-growing, supply of music. At the same time, an individual can consume music more quickly than he can other forms of entertainment, about 12-15 songs per hour, compared to a one TV show per half hour, one movie per two hours, or one game or movie per 5+ hours.

This creates an information gap between supply and demand, which, until now, has been (inefficiently) filled by critics, magazines, and the music cos themselves. The dilemma is this: given so much music choice on the one hand, and an insatiable demand on the other, how does a regular person easily find new music? Subscribe to every music magazine available? Expensive and time-consuming. Get it from the radio? Terrestrial radio (other than college radio) is pretty much dead as a source of discovery; the same artists circulate ad infinitum. Get it from TV? Some shows, such as the OC, have been effective at promoting new music talent, but given an endless supply music available digitally, this is just a drop in the bucket.

The Interent, of course, offers the perfect mean of filling this gap. Enter music discovery services like Jango.