The Music Genome Project

Like most cool things I hear about, this tangent is in reference to a story I heard on NPR. Scott Simon interviewed the founder of Savage Beast Technologies, Tim Westergren, about how the Music Genome Project could change the way we find new music.

Instead of relying on purchase histories to identify songs you may like, the Music Genome Project, can make a musical suggestion based on the categorizing of 400 distinct musical attributes. This method is set up to ensure a more accurate musical match to your personal taste. The process is succinctly summed up on their web site, but the basic idea is that you could ask the application to find a song like song X and you could instantly find songs A through P that all have a distinct musical closeness to song X.

A truly amazing amount of time and effort must have been put into this project, because you can't test it until you've built the library with thousands (and I would hazard to guess, millions) of songs catalogued... and catalogued accurately and consistently. The examples given on the radio seemed amazingly similar, and sold me on the method's ability to suggest a very close style of song.

It all seems pretty powerful for the world of mood films, advertising, industrial design, and web design. To be able to match a song's tone, rhythm, and styling could open the doors for better musical choices in design... fewer cliche songs, perhaps... or maybe more?

After hearing about this, one does not need to wonder if this application will be bought, but when and by whom. On the radio program Tim Wetergren said that he could not talk about a deal that was in the works, but my friend Chris has predicted that Apple would snatch it up for use with it's, already market dominant, iTunes software.

I tend to agree with the prediction, as I think Apple is the type of company that looks for this type of innovation. I also think that rival companies may be looking to beat Apple at some of it's own innovation game. They may be willing to front some big cash to isolate Apple from the technology, with an exclusive contract or buy out.

My hope is that Apple is working the deal. I don't think anything could get me to move from using iTunes to another digital music store/service, but who knows?