Comments on: Revisiting iLike music recommendations

By: Oscar Celma

Oscar Celma — Wed, 19 Aug 2009 18:19:52 +0000

Very interesting serendipitous recommendations! :-)

So, MySpace is spending $20M for randomly generated recommendations? Well, I could do that in a couple of Python code lines.

Ok, looks like the $$$ comes from the fact that they have 50M (not engaged) users, all coming from Facebook, that use the app from time to time…

What’s the real value of iLike, then? See: http://dpakman.wordpress.com/2009/08/18/confusing-traction-with-value/

Cheers, Oscar

By: zazi

zazi — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 21:46:03 +0000

Of course, the recommendation thing is still a subjective thing. So for one user the suggestions are perfect, because he never expect the recommend songs and is suprised and maybe also satisfied because he also like the recommendation (because he likes the mixture or whatever). On the other side, another user really expect a closer relation to the seed song and is open for more similar tracks in style or artist or country or whatever similarity.
That means a user should always get the chance to direct the recommendations in a certain kind (detailed, less detailed, …).
Afterall, I don’t understand the hype of iLike and price of around 20 million dollar. At the end the service, which will work at best (economicly and regards to the performance) wins the race. It’s still a no to less profit market.

Cheers zazi

By: grubernd

grubernd — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 21:13:00 +0000

maybe they want you to discover NEW music.. so if you listened to old miles davis all your life, it might be time for some miss aguilera. in that sense, their playlists are PERFECT.

(big grin)