Sep
21
Category: 
Below is an extract from a fascinating article about Last.fm and its ilk. I’m now having a look at the MusicIP mixer.
Or is it looking at me?
Pitchfork Feature: Better Than We Know Ourselves
“Music is tribal in its essence”
Much like Ringo more than a decade ago, Last.fm— which launched in its present form in August 2005– recommends music by comparing you to everybody else in the system, and it builds a community where you can find other fans who share your tastes. But unlike Ringo, it doesn\’t study you through a questionnaire: You give it permission to spy on you and learn everything it can based on the music you play on your computer.
As co-founder Martin Stiksel explains on the phone from their London office, “Last.fm developed out of a platform for unsigned artists and bands. Two of the founders, Felix [Miller] and myself, had an online label/unsigned artist platform on our website, [along with] streaming radio. And we were inundated with great music. Within a short time we had 500 different artists that nobody knew.”
So they built a collaborative filtering system— a tool that makes recommendations based on the fans who most closely share your tastes. Put simply, if your collection and somebody else’s are 80% alike, it’s a safe bet you would like the other 20%. Once the system gets a read on you, it uses this formula to recommend bands, point you to your “neighbours”— other users with similar listening habits— and stream a custom-tailored radio station to your Last.fm music player.
I’ve made some notes on my first MusicIP mixer playlist.