Toonage’s Weblog

I caught a couple of the panels offered Thursday at the CMW Digital Media and Music Summit. The first was titled “Recommendation Engines: The Ubersolution To Managing Music Ultra Surplus“. The discussion centered on how people discover new music and how recommendation engines such as Pandora and Last FM filter music to people based on their tastes. The debate is if this is a great new innovation or simply overwhelming to the consumer who now has a million choices at their fingertips.

Tom Conrad of Pandora explained that their site uncovered new music for people by first getting them to choose an artist as opposed to a genre. Through their research done via the Music Genome Project, they were able to analyze basic elements of songs to categorize them by rhythm, melody, instrumentation and determine the sound that appeals to an individual. It was discussed whether this type of recommendation would ever be able to provide the same type of personalization that you would get from your own social circle or the guy at the record store who knew you and your tastes.

Sandy Pearlman pointed out that back in the 60s and 70s, radio and concerts commonly had a variety of styles playing back to back offering the audience a completely diverse listening experience. He suggested that any recommendation search engines should offer a start and an end point to choose from. For example, start with the Doors and end with 13th Century classical music and cover everything in between. With the long tail effect taking place now, the days of huge million selling albums are gone being replaced by a greater number of artists achieving more modest sales. It was questioned where and how new artists could find a place in these recommendation engines when there are already millions of choices available.

When its so common to hear that the music industry is resistant to embrace technology, it was refreshing to hear from a group of people that had not only embraced it but were excited about where it was headed. Unfortunately, the irony was not lost to me that Pandora is currently shut down for Canadian audiences.

The second panel I caught was entitled The Paradise Of Infinite Storage: How This Ultimate Game Changer Will Upset All The Apple Carts. This centered around the idea that as digital storage space becomes larger and cheaper, it will become very easy to carry around massive music collections in your pocket. Not only massive collections but the idea of carrying around literally everything ever produced. The panel initially debated whether it was indeed a paradise at all or whether it would simply become overwhelming having so much choice at hand. It was interesting how different cultures view the distribution of music. In Brazil, it is viewed as a community experience where both downloading and uploading are encouraged. Paul Hoffert discussed how studies in China showed that people commonly viewed music and movies as free for the taking while they were willing to pay for courses and education. Sandy Pearlman hoped these innovations and trends could wake the labels up to what was happening and help them reform their own business models.