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64 Comments
- deadbaby, on 10/12/2007, -0/+20Isn't that what last.fm is for?
- lukas88, on 10/12/2007, -2/+20Dugg because it is a good idea. But at least in my experience, there is a hitch. Let me explain.
As soon as al gore invented the internet, I started to realize that the amount of music I could collect with relative ease and little expense was huge. This presented one major problem: I wouldn't have time to listen to it all. And by "listen", I don't mean once or twice, I mean really get to know and love the song. I guess I don't enjoy music as filler background noise most of the time, I like to really focus on it. So I decided to solve this problem, I would screen each song once and only keep the songs that I really really dugg. The result is I built up a music collection of around 2000 songs. This probably doesn't seem like much for a music lover, but on the contrary, all these songs are handpicked with no filler songs in between. There are people with much bigger collections that listen to much fewer songs, simply because everyone has their favorite songs. The difference with me was, that is all I had.
After a few years of this method, I started to notice the fatal flaw. You cannot love all your music all at once. It is impossible to make a perfect mix CD with 16 songs that you love listening to equally. Well, maybe for a few times through it, initially. But eventually, there will be songs on there that you look forward to hearing more than other songs. And those "other songs" eventually become the filler, no matter how much you liked them to begin with. This is what has happened with my collection. So eventually I "retired" those songs to another folder and moved on.
After a few yours of THAT method, I eventually got tired of all the work that goes in to keeping my music collection super fantastic all the time. One day I just turned on the radio, something I hadn't done in years. I listened to it throughout the week and I started to realize that it in a sense, it could replace my collection. I would never do that, because I would be losing a part of what defines my "style" or whatever, but it still helped me to realize something. When you buy a CD, or listen to a playlist, it is impossible to have attribute a set value to each song. You always compare it to the other songs you listened to on that CD/playlist/session of random songs. In the grand scheme of things, all songs are not created equal. But from a subjective point of view, they are.
Nowadays, I limit myself to a few albums a month from bands that I love. I still make mixes, but more often I just enjoy albums because they are designed with this method. The person who mixes the album has a good idea which songs people will love and which songs will be the filler (as awful as that sounds), so they arrange them accordingly. Listening to the CD the whole way through without skipping songs is eventually what I find the best.
I realize now that this rant is only related to your article in one sense: democracy in finding new music can probably be great for finding new music, but it will never be able to find the "best" music. (which is probably not what you were claiming anyway, so this is a rant, not an argument.) - canewediggit, on 10/12/2007, -4/+20sounds great, but what i imagine would happen would be the same damn song played over and over and over. no thanks. then again, i haven't listened to the radio in a good 10 years, so maybe i'm completely wrong.
@xsuite- what did you copyright? voting? hardly. the name xsuite? who cares? if it was a radio station that operated this way you would have to trademark the process/system, a copyright wouldn't mean a damn thing. and even then, i doubt you could get a legal tm for playing the most voted on songs (ever hear of trl?) as it's too commonplace. but i'm sure you knew that already. just keep waiting on ALOT of cash, the check is in the mail. - themastersb, on 10/12/2007, -1/+14"Hitted!!!"? ... -_-;
- CapeKid, on 10/12/2007, -0/+12Have you looked at the most downloaded on iTunes? It is just whatever is being pushed on the radio anyway. If I wanted Justin Timberlake and Nickelback looped over and over again I could listen to regular radio. It could work, seeing as how it would be the exact same as a normal radio station.
- rm999, on 10/12/2007, -3/+12I don't think this is a great idea. This risks becoming the equivalent of a top 40 station. I (and a lot of people I know) listen to radio to hear new music, and use an mp3 player to listen to good music I have already found. A voting system would be terrible for people like us.
There will also be a lag period for new music, because people will vote for music they have heard. No matter what, a radio station should have *some* editorial control (as opposed to digg).
I listen to radioparadise.com a lot. They have voting for songs in place, and could easily implement a system to play popular or highly rated songs, but that would defeat the purpose for me, and a lot of its other listeners.
For a pop-(insert genre) station, this could MAYBE work. Not for anything else. - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -3/+8Digg didn't invent voting people.
- wvdavis, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4@ tackle - no, I'm quite happy with the choices I have made and I don’t miss the redundancy of radio.
- AdrianRice, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4@lukas88
Completely agree with your approach, but we solved that problem you experienced at work with smart playlists in iTunes. Bear with me....
1. Listen to songs once and rate it (if less than 3* you won't hear it again)
2. Start a smart play list for your 3* that only lists songs that only stores 3* songs that haven't been played in 5 days and no more than 5 listens on the play count.
3. Start another smart play list for any 3* than has over 5 listens and hasn't played in 20 days.
4. Repeat steps 2 & 3 for 4* however change the variables to play more often and for longer (ie. not played with 2 days and no more that 10 times - another Smart playlist for over 10 plays not within 8 days)
5. 5* (not played within 1 day and no more than 15 times - another over 15 plays and within 4 days)
6. You should have 6 smart playlists now with varying lists depending on the total play count and when they were last played.
7. Create a "Master" smart playlist that plays anything in those 6 playlists randomly.
Now you have you're own radio station that plays the new songs and better songs more often. After they get played often, their rotation slows. That doesn't stop you ramping up a rating or downgrading a song. We've been running this throughout our office for the past 4 months and have our own new music tuesday where we throw in new music to be rated. It constantly throws up surprises without anyone complaining. - bherring, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3I like the idea if it will help provide exposure to some independent artists. (DK got it right with "MTV Get Off The Air!")
If it just becomes another source of corporate astroturfing, then it will be a waste and I know I'll ignore it. - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Not bad ideas... Dugg
Instead of trying to prove how "internet-awesome" you guys are, how about thanking him for his efforts?
I think it's a great idea. - arcangelmd, on 10/12/2007, -3/+6I think this is a great idea.. of course even if xsuite is BSing it is dicks like that that will probably make such ventures unlikely to happen.
- krazytom, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2...and you got to choose between 2 songs. I hope this invention would allow for more choices than the American political voting system.
- dhollidator, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2I'll just continue to use Last.fm, thank you. I really don't care to know what the digg community's general music taste is.
- gardnmi, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2MTV 2 has or had a show that did something similar to this where fans voted online to chose the song they wanted to hear.
- FriedGeek, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Anyone ever hear of Radio Free Hawaii?
http://www.stim.com/Stim-x/0896August/Sparky/aloha.html
They were the best radio station ever. Pre-web enabled you would vote for 10 songs you loved and 10 you hated. Songs that got so hated were destroyed and never played again. You could always get a great mix of music. - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2digg, TWiT and all the other tech podcasts should be on satellite radio
- anthony1124, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2i think a better idea... for the sake of music would be for apple to do something like last.fm for iPod and iTunes. last.fm is specifically for the sake of music. it's not fool proof, there are ways labels can exploit the concept of last.fm.
- wvdavis, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2I have not listened to the radio since I got my MP3 player.... "iTunes killed the radio star." I can also get someones reviews of a song from sites like allmusic.
- clinko, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Similar system that I wrote a few years back.
"Hits" are done w/the program that sends to my db the song you're listening to. Here's the page w/what people are listenting to now:
http://www.clinko.com/music/ - AdrianRice, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2I forgot to add. You're right about the rating difficultly compared to others songs. The rating we use is only in the context of our work environment, not whether it's a good song or not. I love Nick Drake, but it's way too heavy for work, therefore it would be rated 2*.
In this system, ratings should only relate to a context, not necessarily the content. - awizeman, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2I like the idea, but think it might be a mess if not admin'd properly. Labels could game it, because it would be in their best interest. On a site I work on we try to keep it clean with a slight digg-like idea for music idea - only get music from indie's - and so far they love it - the site is www.bandbuzz.com
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Digg shoud have its own sattilite radio station.
- AdrianRice, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2@ realwx
Yeah, but last.fm does table the collective popularity of all music played, therefore would construct a similarly democratic list without users having to "digg it" so to speak. - ShBm, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Ten seconds before coming to check what was new on here (and finding this) I had an idea for Digg music. I think they should add that section to Digg. I don't know how it would work or what would be on it, but it could be cool. Maybe people could upload songs to Digg just as they do stories (but from their computers) and they would be voted on, and when you clicked them you could listen to a stream of the song. Dunno if that would violate copyright laws, or if there would be a way around it, but I'll bet there would be some interesting music submitted from Diggers.
- michaelb1, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2This will never work because radio is so bad i cannot stand to listen to it.
I am all iPod, all the time. Music, podcasts, audiobooks etc.
Maybe after a months of the digg process, radio will be bearable enough to listen to again. - cadich, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1No link whatsoever
- Rikushix, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Great idea, and I know where he's coming from with XM. I just got XM a few days ago, and top 20 on 20 is a cool concept, but very finicky, and not necessarily mainstream.
- Dotdotdot, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Pandora is actually great, you type in an artist or a song you like and it plays songs that like it on that artist or song's "station," and you vote weather or not that song sounds like the song you typed in, and whether or not it should be on that channel again.
You can discover some great music with that.
www.pandora.com - amohongos, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1"as much as the radio sucks the industry does exist because it helps weed out the stuff that isn't as good to most people."
That's the ostensible idea behind it, but in reality, practically every song you hear on commercial radio is there because somebody paid for the privilege:
http://archive.salon.com/ent/feature/2001/03/14/payola/index.html
It's all well-documented, but beyond that, it seems pretty obvious just from listening to the radio. I find it hard to believe that any program director would independently decide that Nickelback and Creed are the best the music world has to offer. - realwx, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Last.fm = similarities to other artists, totally different than Ryan's idea.
- realwx, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1@tackle: I'd much rather like satellite radio built-in, not FM.
- realwx, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I'm just going to repeat what I commented above:
Pandora = similarities to other artists, totally different than Ryan's idea. - 98acura, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Its called channel 20 on xmradio...
you can goto 20on20.xmradio.com and vote for songs... If you like music that everyone else likes, this is a great idea.. I generally like older more obscure rock music so... the idea kinda sucks.. - fooslayer, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2YES ( http://www.yes.com/ ) already lets you vote and chat about what's on the radio right now in a lot of major US cities.
edit: looks like jeremie beat me to it. :-) - r81984, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2Yahoo Music sort of does this. You rate each song as it plays, then it will repeat your favorite songs more and never play songs you hate. It also lets you rate by album, performer, and type of music.
- wafflez, on 10/12/2007, -2/+3I'd hit every musician.
- darkein, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Digg should implement a section on "digging" you favorite songs. It would be separated into different genres like techno or jazz (like the news is now on digg) with the top 24hr, top week, top month, top year. Forget the radio station idea, legal issues would make it impossible to play every song that people like (royalties etc.). Instead this will give people a list of songs to check out. If the song is good then it will rise on the digg page and people will know that it is worth getting on their favorite music application.
That is my 2 cents for ya! - roxics, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I kinda get what you're saying and I feel the same way. For as much as the radio sucks the industry does exist because it helps weed out the stuff that isn't as good to most people. It will never be perfect. Not everyone has the same taste in music and there are many people out there who just don't like anything on the radio. And the sad fact is that even when good songs get looped over and over again you just get sick of them after a couple of weeks.
I don't think a system like the one mentioned here would work. There is just way to much music out there and people get way to passionate about it that they would constantly be pushing it on other people. Then if you think digg has problems with people trying to game the system, whatever this site would be would have it even worse. You'd have massive campaigns out there for single bands trying to get dugg. Sometimes the system we all think is corrupt is the one that actually works. - bs0l, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Personally, the radio is sort of old news. I definitely agree with the songs, especially if the voting system allowed for music playback. But that would result in copyright issues, etc.
- brstilson, on 01/02/2009, -0/+1If it was really like Digg it would be under the guise of song voting but really the top songs would be controlled by a small group of "elite" users who for some reason almost always get their songs to the top of the list and also begin to accept money from record companies in order to submit certain songs and promote them. Essentially, it'd be a normal radio station pretending it isn't.
- MrFoodMonster, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1It could be interesting, given the crowd that's listening to it doesn't suck. Channels for genres and whatnot would be pretty cool.
- PuyoDead, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Definitely a bad idea. It would just be the same rehashed top 40 radio crap you can tune into every day. Popular does not equal good.
- eNthem, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Y92.5, a radio station in Sacramento already does a similar thing, although for only one 1 hour every Tuesday.
From website (Y92.com):
For a full hour, from 2 to 3pm, YOU pick what song plays next! Just log in here at Y92.com and you’ll see the “nominees” for each song slot that hour. YOU vote on the one you’d most like to hear. The winner plays next. No one’s done THAT on the radio before!
The Y-Site polling page opens each workday at 1:45pm.
Be a part of it!!! - Brak710101, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I thought of this a while ago, an issue I was thinking of was people playing the same thing over and over.
So, I wondered about "cooldowns" and if they could be applied to the songs/playlist, but It seemed to still have to many drawbacks to make it worth it. - bizchris, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1@canwediggit
And imagine how many times people would be say "this is a dupe." - dstz, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I'm eagerly awaiting it, as a musician. Why only radio btw ?
- Tbab, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2If you listen to the radio, you lose...at life.
That's just my biased opinion. Music is the only thing I'm dogmatic about. You can't reason with me. Radio is awful. Enough said. - brstilson, on 01/02/2009, -0/+1I'd love to have to wait for a scheduled time to listen to a podcast rather than listen to it whenever I want like I do now.
- MalDON, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1A friend and I actually started working on a concept of this, but for live internet radio. It seemed like a good idea at the time, but we never ran with it. Now I kinda wish we did.
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