Rocketsurgeon's Blog

Jadam Kahn (aka Rocketsurgeon) Joins MyStrands

Jadam Kahn — Wed, 14 Nov 2007 18:27:59 +0000

Hello readers. It is my pleasure to announce that I have taken a full time position as Director of User Experience at MyStrands. MyStrands is a leader in developing technologies to help people discover things they like and didn’t know about already. As you may have noticed, over the past few months, MyStrands has been assembling an incredibly talented team of industry professionals and academics in addition to securing a significant round of funding. I am also pleased to again work side-by-side with my former colleague at AOL Music Now, Jason Herskowitz to help architect, design and develop another killer user experience.

What does this mean for you dear readers? Well, I may need to be a bit more judicious regarding certain topics I cover on this blog, but I plan on continuing to provide the extensive and in-depth reviews, commentary, and directory listings regarding the Music 2.0 space you have come to expect.

In the meantime check out my profile page on MyStrands.

SNL iPhone Spoof

Jadam Kahn — Sun, 04 Nov 2007 22:12:42 +0000

A very funny spoof of the new iPhone ads from SNL…

Pict.fm - Create Artist Avatars With Last.fm Data

Jadam Kahn — Tue, 30 Oct 2007 06:07:07 +0000

Pict.fm is a utility that allows you to create an animated profile avatar based on your favorite or recently listened to artists charts in Last.fm. You basically type in your last.fm username and select your avatar size. Pict.fm then provides you with a list of artists to select from. If more than one photo exists for an artist, you can select which one you wish to display. When you are done, Pict.fm provides you with the necessary URL and HTML code to embed in your profile.

Last.fm Visualization: What's Your Open Mind Index?

Jadam Kahn — Mon, 29 Oct 2007 03:10:20 +0000

The LastFM Open Mind Index (OMI) is an interesting way to understand your taste in music. The index is a calculation based on your last.fm top artists of the last 12 months. The quantity of your played songs, as well as the artist-tags are reflected in the calculation. A high OMI is an indicator for a high musical bandwidth and your openness for different kind of music.

After you type in your last.fm username, you are provided with your own musical taste widgets which can be embedded in your last.fm profile. The site also provides consolidated data for about 80,000 last.fm users and reveals some interesting information (e.g. Vatican City has the highest OMI at 106.9). Here is my OMI calculation:

Ask.com Music Search

Jadam Kahn — Mon, 29 Oct 2007 02:47:43 +0000

With roughly a 4% market share in search, it’s not surprising that Ask.com has been aggressively marketing their service. The new campaign, launched this summer basically shows an invisible user accessing core features of the service and effectively demonstrating how it is different than Google. For obvious reasons, the recent commercial featuring a music search for KT Tunstall caught my eye…

So I decided to check out Ask music search myself. For many artists the first result is biographic information provided by All Music Guide which also includes links to the artist’s discography, songs, and credits. The official band site and MySpace page also usually appear at the top of the results. You can narrow your search using specific predefined queries for content such as lyrics, tabs, chords, tour dates, CDs, videos, ringtones, posters and more. The page also provides links to expand your search which includes related artists and related names (e.g. band members) The right sidebar also also includes some special features such as images, playable popular tracks (from iLike), the Wikipedia entry, and videos from multiple sources.

The results really shine when searching for more popular artists or artists with fairly unique names. It’s not so good in other cases. For instance searching for Dengue Fever didn’t provide me with any band related results but instead provided links about the dreaded disease from which the band got their name. Cases like this leads me to believe search engines should come up with a universally accepted method to narrow searches specifically for music such as typing “Band: Dengue Fever”.

Overall, the Ask music search it pretty good and certainly much better than Google. However I would only use Ask when looking for web pages with artist information or articles. For searching artist related images, videos, songs, discographies and other music-specific targets Foxytunes Planet does a much more reliable and comprehensive job.

Ezmo: Social Music Sharing

Jadam Kahn — Fri, 26 Oct 2007 17:52:17 +0000

Norway-based Ezmo is a flash-based service that allows you to upload music from your computer so you can access your collection from any web browser. The service also allows you to create playlists and share music with your friends. There are many services out there that provide similar functionality such as Anywhere.fm, iMeem and Streampad and unfortunately Ezmo does little to raise the bar.

Uploading Music Sucks
I have close to 100 gigs of music on my hard drive and there is no way to upload my entire collection in any reasonable amount of time. Additionally while the Ezmo player seems to have scanned all 22,000 of my songs it only attempts to upload around 500 of them. There are other services out there like SimplifyMedia that use better approaches to scan and share media libraries.

Browsing Libraries Suck
Ezmo lets you invite up to 10 friends to share music with and they need to be people you invite. Ezmo is a social network of sorts but a weak one at best - there is no way to search or browse for other people who use the service. Once I do have a friend who accepted my invitation and waited for them to upload music, I can then see their collection. In the meantime, I just need to sit back for a few hours and wait for music to be uploaded so I can begin playing - hmmm, maybe I will add some friends, listen to group radio, and get some recommendations on Last.fm while I wait.

However, there is no context for browsing collections. Ezmo provides no charts or predefined playlists such as top songs, recently played and just added, for you or your friends. Ezmo is missing an opportunity here as there are no charts that aggregate behavior across my friends. Additionally there is no way to search for music across all my friends. Say I want to hear a new song by the Crimea - I have to know that a specific friend of mine has that artist to be able to locate it.

UI issues
The flash interface takes a long time to load and suffers from many issues such as making my scroll wheel useless and stopped playback when the page is in an inactive browser tab. One feature Ezmo almost gets right is the ability to add songs from your friends libraries to your own playlists. However, the playlist UI is overly convoluted and confusing. To add a friends song to a playlist i need to:

1. Click on my library
2. Click my playlist tab
3. Click a playlist name
4. Select edit playlist
5. Click on a friend icon
6. Find a song in their library
7. Drag a song to the playlist pane

Wrong playlist? I need to start all over again.

Conclusion
Lack of any truly compelling social features coupled with serious UI and uploading issues makes Emzo seem very Music 1.0 in a world of great Music 2.0 sites.

Gruvr's New Band Tracker Widget

Jadam Kahn — Fri, 26 Oct 2007 02:55:00 +0000

Gruvr is a Music 2.0 service that allows you to track bands and see when they are coming to town. The just released a new widget that allows you to post a visual band tour map on your web page, social network profile or blog. The widget is essentially a mashup of a band’s MySpace tour date information and google maps. Users can click on the “Tour Map” link to access a more interactive map and additional information.

Boogie4.us: Music Blog Aggregator

Jadam Kahn — Fri, 26 Oct 2007 02:28:41 +0000

I recently stumbled across Boogie4.us, a music blog aggregator similar to The Hype Machine and Elbo.ws. Like most blog aggregators, the service basically tracks a variety of music blogs into a single location for easy access.

The River of Music
The sites home page lists posts from all of the tracked blogs essentially providing a “river of music”. In addition to a brief snippet of the blog post, each entry also contains mp3 which can be played directly within the page. The sidebar also contains a search box and links to weekly top artists, recommended blogs, top blogs and recently updated blogs.

Artist Pages
When you click on any artist name, you are taken to an artist results page which shows all blog posts that contain a reference to the selected artist. These pages also display artist bios (via Wikipedia), a link to their official site, related genres, music videos (via YouTube), discography (via Amazon), similar artists, and links to all blogs that discuss the artist. Like most sites that use web services from other sites, the information is often incomplete or just plain wrong (for instance, Of Montreal’s bio uses an entry for Bank of Montreal)

One of the nicest features is the mixtape player which takes all mp3 from the artist across all blogs and puts them into a single streaming playlist. There is even a link to the original blog post that contains the mp3.

Another cool feature is the artist widget which lets you embed all blog posts associated with an artist directly into your web site, social network profile or blog.

Blog Pages
Clicking an individual blog link takes you to a page that contains all entries from that blog. In addition to the blog description and official link, the page provides stats such as number of entries, number of mp3s and number of videos. There is also a list of all artists that are mentioned in the blog’s posts though unfortunately they are not sorted alphabetically which makes it difficult to scan, especially with blogs that cover lots of artists.

While the service, currently in alpha, does not have the same level of features as the new Hype Machine, it is still an impressive effort. However, when it comes to blog aggregators, I think the new Hype Machine provides a much better overall experience - especially with their tracking features which make it much more useful tool than Boogie4.us.

The New Hype Machine

Jadam Kahn — Wed, 24 Oct 2007 07:02:03 +0000

There are literally thousands of music blogs on the Internet and keeping track of them can be a major hassle. Its also difficult to get an idea of what’s hot at the moment since the buzz is dispersed over so many sources. The Hype Machine is essentially Technorati for music - a music blog aggregator that tracks all of the music blogs on the internet and provides you with the tools to make sense of it all.

The recently redesigned site is a major improvement over the previous version. The site still maintains the spartan style of the previous version but utilizes color and simple design elements that make navigation is cleaner and text much easier to read. Aside from the standard list of all music pulled from every tracked blog, The Hype Machine has some very interesting and useful features…

Dashboard
The Hype Machine provides you with a dashboard that allows you to manage your favorite songs, blogs, people and searches. These items are then aggregated into your customized Love Feed. You can check your Love Feed for new music, play songs directly in the page and add them to your Loved Tracks. Unfortunately there is no way to play your love feed as a playlist at tis time.

Popular Songs
Keeping track of what’s popular at the moment across thousands of blogs is easy with The Hype Machine. The Popular tab provides a ranked list of songs that are getting the most clicks and plays on the site. Its a great way to see where the blogosphere buzz is at the moment. However, there is no easy way to tell which songs are posted on multiple blogs which is also an indicator of buzz aside from just clicks and plays.

Hype Spy
The Hype Spy is another interesting way to get a feel for the current zeitgeist. The Spy basically shows you what all users are currently listening to at the moment. Additionally, they also provide a list of the most recent searches.

Artist Pages
When you click an artist name, you will see a list of blog entries and songs across the blogosphere that contain that artist. Additionally, these pages also include links to purchase music across multiple stores, tour dates and music videos.

Blog List
You can also access the full list of blogs tracked by The Hype Machine. In addition to a list of top blogs, you can browse the directory alphabetically.

Overall the new Hype Machine is a welcome change and a site i will be using frequently to find the latest and greatest from around the net.

Fiql Adds Video Playlists

Jadam Kahn — Fri, 05 Oct 2007 19:53:35 +0000

I was playing around with Fiql, the playlist sharing community, and stumbled upon their new Video playlist feature. When you upload a music playlist, Fiql automatically finds videos that match songs in your music playlist and creates a video playlist.

The slickly designed player continuously plays videos in order or allows you to directly jump to a video of your choice. When viewing other people’s video playlists, you add videos to your QuickList which you can then use to create another playlist. The best part is you can embed your video playlist for use on your website, blog or social network profile.

Sometimes the videos don’t match up exactly so Fiql provides the ability to change the video used for the song if there is more than one option or delete the video entirely.

Heavy Shtetl: Jewsrock.org

Jadam Kahn — Thu, 04 Oct 2007 22:50:16 +0000

We all know the Beastie Boys, Neil Diamond, Bob Dylan, Lou Reed and even Sammy Davis Jr. are jewish rockers but I bet you never suspected Beck, Joey Ramone, Gene Simmons, Susannah Hoffs, Mick Jones and Perry Farrell were also members of the tribe. As a fellow MOT, I was delighted to find Jewsrock.org - a non-profit group devoted to illuminating the intersection of rock and roll and Jewish culture. The site adopts a very lighthearted and humorous tone with features such as “Dropping the Baum: The Real Names of Jewish Rockers”, “The Challah Fame: Who’s Who in Jewish Rock”, and their interview section entitles “The 4 Questions”.

Now they just need to step up and embed some kick ass playlists for that next Bar Mitzvah.

Video Valve: Personalized Music TV

Jadam Kahn — Wed, 03 Oct 2007 22:26:50 +0000

Video Valve is a personalized music video channel from Viacom. As you rate videos and add artists to your channel, VV learns about your tastes and fine-tunes your video playlist accordingly. You can also further influence programming by adjusting popularity and freshness sliders.

While the UI looks simple and straightforward its is very problematic. When you type in a an artist name, you will see live search results. Unfortunately, many items that display in the live search box are actually not represented in the catalog (it would be better to just restrict results to available content). There is also no difference between your play queue and search results - if you search for something new (or click an artist or director name), the results replace your play queue. Not only that, but it often inserts songs you have just listened to. It would be better to have the queue and results separate and provide the ability to add items from the results to the queue. This approach would also alleviate the site’s biggest problem - there is no apparent way to get back and access your personalized channel based on items you have rated.

Ratings are also problematic - you can only rate videos but not artists. I may very much like an artist but not like a particular song and VV does not seem to have an understandable method for how this common occurrence is handled. There is also no way to see videos you have rated. Additionally, the site does not provide any data regarding what album the video is from or links to purchase songs.

VV does provide a nice selection of good quality video (that surpasses services that rely on poorly encoded or labeled YouTube for their content) and it’s fun to click around and check out different artists. However, the problems of the service are significant and need to be addressed before it can graduate to a truly compelling offering.

LastFM Tasteometer Widget

Jadam Kahn — Tue, 02 Oct 2007 20:38:12 +0000

LastFM introduced a new widget today that allows people to compare their music taste with yours directly from your website, social network profile or blog. The beauty of the widget is that users don’t need to be LastFM members to compare tastes - they can simply type in names of their favorite artists and see how you match up. This form of openess is a welcome change from lock-in widgets that require users to already be members of a service to interact. You can also click on a “Listen to music like this” button which basically provides similar artist radio for the top artist match between the two users.

Asian Pop Record Covers from the '60s & '70s

Jadam Kahn — Mon, 01 Oct 2007 08:01:04 +0000

I came across this delicious collection of vintage Asian albums covers from the ’60s and ’70s (including Singapore, Indonesia, honk Kong, Japan and Thailand). The covers clearly demonstrate the influence of Western design while maintaining a distinct Asian flavor. I only wish they had some samples of these albums to listen to.

Review: iTunes Wifi Store

Jadam Kahn — Fri, 28 Sep 2007 05:02:56 +0000

I just updated my iPhone with the latest firmware that adds the wi-fi store functionality. Its not often that I require the need to purchase a song on the spot but I can imagine several instances where it can be useful. For instance when I was on vacation last week, a friend of mine played a bunch of new music that I really liked. I didn’t bring my laptop with me and really wanted to get some of those tunes for the rest of my trip. The wifi store would have been a perfect solution.

Featured Releases and Charts
You access the store via a new icon on your main menu screen. The first page you see is Featured New Releases which shows a combination of small promotional banners in addition to selected albums. You can also access What’s Hot and Genre Features as well.

There is another tab for Top 10s where you can view the top albums and songs across the iTunes service. At the bottom of each list there is a link to view 10 more items. When you tap it, the iPhone loads the next 10 items below the previous 10 so you never need to use a back button - a very nice use of “progressive disclosure”.

Finding Music
You can search for songs by typing in what you are looking for. Like iTunes, the wifi store thankfully utilizes live search so as you type you are provided with matching keywords. The more you type, the more accurate the suggestions.

Viewing an artist will display 2 albums (with a link to view all albums) and 25 songs (with a link to view 25 more songs). Albums also show ratings as well as the number of reviews though you cant access reviews at this time. To listen to a song, simply tap the song name and you will hear a 30-second sample.

Purchase and Download
To purchase a song or album, you click the price and it changes to a buy now button. This is a nice feature because it greatly reduces the chance of accidentally purchasing a song. Click the buy now button and the item animates into the download tab in the bottom left. You are then asked to enter your account password. Songs download incredibly fast over a high speed connection.

Conclusion
While the full iTunes store offers much more in terms of exploring and discovering music, the wifi store is a very elegant and impressive implementation. Now the problem is how to control my purchasing impulses when waiting in (the ever expanding) places that have wifi access.