Comments on RoboJenny: Genius Playlists

@AndrewSmithMyself being, an increasingly antisoci...

2008-09-22T11:17:39.378-04:00

@AndrewSmith
Myself being, an increasingly antisocial (albeit I feel sad about this, but I won't evade the fact that it's true) blip on the social-networking radar, I think there's lots to be said for services like Pandora which don't depend on "the social aspect" at all. Yeah, you can see other user's info if you're curious, but the entire system is expert driven versus user-data-mining driven. Pandora provides a very structured and reliable system to say "I think like A. What else is like A?" whereas social stuff relies purely on "Who else likes A?" which is a degree apart from the social systems, and if you don't care to ever meet willow34562 who lives in Krebalakistan (or message them and say "You like Felt-Walrus? I like Felt-Walrus!!!!" (this is obvious. the system told you this)), it matters very little who this person is.

That said, I found a lot of good music in the soulseek days using the social "I like A and X likes A. X also likes B" system. But the key difference there is that soulseek enabled listening to more than a 30 second clip.

I don't think Apple has any ulterior motives to homogenize the human race. I think they're just betting we're more homogenized than we actually are, thus leaving us laughing at their claims of "genius".

@Andrew Smith -I hadn't thought about the social a...

2008-09-22T10:21:46.007-04:00

@Andrew Smith -

I hadn't thought about the social aspect, but you're totally right. I myself use blip.fm and iLike (which has helped me find out about some of my friends liking bands and didn't realize they liked, leading us to go to concerts together).

I see Genius playlists as trying to take back the slice of the market that has moved to using services like Pandora, and hoping that you'll buy more iTunes from the sidebar to add to your dynamic playlists.

One of the most enjoyable ways I've found to get t...

2008-09-20T23:46:57.255-04:00

One of the most enjoyable ways I've found to get to know people on the internet is to listen to their favorite music with them. For most people, their choice of music is something that contributes to their sense of indivuality, however illusory that might be. Now there are even social websites like last.fm which are based on this phenomenon.

So this leads me to ask, what is the point of a service that takes the social aspect out of the experience? Why bother with something that will not broaden your horizons by either introducing you to new people or new kinds of music?

Maybe there is more to Genius Playlists than is apparent at this point, but I remain sceptical about its potential and regard it as yet another attempt to homogenize the human race for commercial gain.