Comments on: Beyond Social Currency

By: Dries Buytaert

Dries Buytaert — Thu, 08 Jul 2010 12:03:17 +0000

Interesting. I often have the same — i.e. I often really like a song before they are played widely or have entered the top charts. My wife actually things I can predict the charts.

By: jeremy

jeremy — Wed, 07 Jul 2010 16:05:22 +0000

Yes absolutely.. radio programming is determined in large part by demographic appeal…mashed up with payola. My only point is that listeners aren’t completely passive. Too easy to not only switch stations, thereby “exploring”, but to also pop in a CD, turn on the ipod, etc.

By: Daniel Tunkelang

Daniel Tunkelang — Wed, 07 Jul 2010 14:28:59 +0000

Perhaps, though I still believe that musical taste exhibits a lot more conformity than exploration. But I hope you agree that listening to terrestrial radio involves a lot of social influence: radio stations target particular demographics, and many not only favor popular music but announce the popularity of the songs they are playing. I’m not sure how much people overcome that dynamic by station-surfing.

By: jeremy

jeremy — Wed, 07 Jul 2010 14:12:18 +0000

I think we by nature are explorers, much more than we’re given credit for. For example, even when listening to the radio station, a supposedly passive activity, many people don’t just sit and listen to the radio station. They’ll start fiddling with the dial. Or hit “seek” and scan the channels for a while until they find a song they like, and then “seek” again a few songs later.

People don’t necessarily stay on the same radio station the whole time. They actively go out and explore other possibilities, by scanning through multiple stations. Music is fundamentally more exploratory by nature.

By: Daniel Tunkelang

Daniel Tunkelang — Wed, 07 Jul 2010 12:31:38 +0000

Jeremy, no complaints here! But music exploration sounds like a much more deliberate activity than listening to a radio station. What intrigues me here is the observation that we are all sucked into being explorers–through a medium that somewhat isolates our decisions from social influence.

By: jeremy

jeremy — Tue, 06 Jul 2010 22:39:09 +0000

Stop me if I keep posting these same links every time you write a music IR post. But I’ve had the same reaction against crowd-driven, popularity-driven music exploration for quite some time.

http://irgupf.com/2009/04/21/dagstuhl-seminar-on-content-based-retrieval/

By: Daniel Tunkelang

Daniel Tunkelang — Tue, 06 Jul 2010 21:33:41 +0000

Hah, was wondering if someone would call me on that one. His birthday is in a few weeks–I figured I’d be conservative and round up.

Anyway, I’m sure that YouTube will keep promoting Greyson Chances and Susan Boyles. And I don’t begrudge these talented folks their 15 minutes of fame–and the opportunity to try to convert those opportunities into careers. But I hope that content will be given a chance to become a more important success factor than social influence.

By: Robert

Robert — Tue, 06 Jul 2010 21:27:37 +0000

Greyson Chance is only 12

Very intriguing phenomena. At first stab I would think the network effect would still dominate. It is hard to avoid hearing about the Greyson Chance’s of this world. But hopefully niche artists will have an easier time finding their audience.

You have inspired me to think about giving Pandora a try, I am now curious as to how good its predictions are.