more on Under Recommendation Engines' Hood

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

Begin forwarded message:

From: Bob Drzyzgula <bob () drzyzgula org>
Date: June 16, 2006 10:11:36 AM EDT
To: David Farber <dave () farber net>
Cc: ip () v2 listbox com, Dewayne Hendricks <dewayne () warpspeed com>,  
Monty Solomon <monty () roscom com>
Subject: Re: [IP] Under Recommendation Engines' Hood

Dave,

So I tried this last night. About to turn 50 in a few
months, I've been suffering from Mr. Fry's "familiar trap",
only advanced by a dozen years. If my initial experience
is any predictor, this service could turn out to be quite
expensive -- before the evening was over I had spent about
$80 on music from artists I'd never heard of before.

I put in the name of the last artist I'd listened to on
my iPod: Diana Krall. In addition to artists who were to
me more or less familiar -- Diane Schuur, Sarah Vaughan,
Dianne Reeves, Blossom Dearie -- Pandora played songs by
artists who were completely new to me, and in one case,
new to recording. It played nothing I hated, and a bunch
that I liked a lot.  Of those, I eventually paid money
(to Amazon, Amazon/CDNOW & emusic.com [1]) to populate my
iPod with stuff by Karrin Allyson, Tierney Sutton, Ilona
Knopfler, Jane Monheit, Patricia Barber, Sara Gazarek,
Nancy Lamott, and Marilyn Scott. I doubt that I would
ever have explored this material otherwise; there are,
for example, very few "similar artist" links among them
at allmusic.com, and some don't even have bios in their
listings there. This morning I listened to several songs by
Gazarek & Allyson I'd gotten as emusic.com album downloads.
I wasn't disappointed.

In my opinion, this is exactly the kind of technology the
recording should be promoting to drive sales.

--Bob Drzyzgula

[1] Big plug here for emusic.com. I'd always thought that
they only carried stuff from the most obscure artists,
but recently took a close look and found that there's
quite a bit of mainstream stuff there as well. As they are
managing to sell, with cooperation from the publishers,
DRM-free music for as little as 25 cents per song, I'd
encourage everyone else to take a look as well. We need
their model to be successful.


On Thu, Jun 15, 2006 at 11:05:53AM -0400, David Farber wrote:
> Begin forwarded message:
>
> From: Dewayne Hendricks <dewayne () warpspeed com>
> Date: June 15, 2006 8:59:27 AM EDT
> To: Dewayne-Net Technology List <dewayne-net () warpspeed com>
> Subject: [Dewayne-Net] Under Recommendation Engines' Hood
> Reply-To: dewayne () warpspeed com
>
> [Note:  This item comes from reader Monty Solomon.  DLH]
>
> From: Monty Solomon <monty () roscom com>
> Date: June 14, 2006 9:39:50 PM PDT
> Subject: Under Recommendation Engines' Hood
>
>
> REAL TIME
> By JASON FRY
>
> Under Recommendation Engines' Hood
>
> The Choices Engines Make for Us May Be
> More Accurate Than We'd Like to Believe
> June 12, 2006
>
> Last week I started playing around with Pandora, a streaming-music
> service that several folks have recommended to me. At 37, I'm facing
> a familiar trap for music fans: I have less and less time and find
> myself gravitating toward the familiar, yet don't want to admit that
> my musical tastes have ossified and I'm hopelessly out of it.
>
> Pandora is elegant and simple: Visit the Web site and tell it a
> handful of songs and/or artists you like, and it generates a
> streaming-media radio station for you, playing songs it thinks you'll
> like. You can guide it by indicating you like a song, hate it or are
> tired of it. (It's free at first, then asks you to subscribe. Read
> more about Pandora here.)
>
> To test it, I began slinging the names of artists and songs I like at
> it: OK, Pandora, I like songs by the Sugarhill Gang, the Unband, Guns
> N' Roses, Earth Wind & Fire, Steve Earle, Billy Squier, the Rolling
> Stones, the Ozark Mountain Daredevils, Kanye West, Lucinda Williams,
> the Replacements, Ernie K-Doe, The Clash, Lyle Lovett and
> Sleater-Kinney. Tell me what to listen to. I dare you.
>
> .....
>
> <http://online.wsj.com/public/article/SB114961753581872822-
> jcRlO7GbCpnPIHxI4kKqWTOufgA_20070611.html>
>
> Weblog at: <http://weblog.warpspeed.com>
>
>
>
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