I want either a plugin for Winamp and other major players and/or a completely seperate piece of software. A standard format will store lots of information on which songs to play.
To start, a simple "Track Rank" variable will be attatched to all the songs. The higher the rank the more often the track is played. This would be a great start, and multiple users could each have their own lists (even altered from one global or system database, so that songs you dont rank at all still have some weight. a community of interests with personalization.
Also, more than just single tracks would be on the list. We could have "Sub-Lists" so that now and then the whole Gorillaz CD gets played in order. Or, the sub-list could just define something like 'Top 3 from "Red Hot Chili Peppers"', which would then change depending on your own rankings of songs.
We could have a global database, a system database, group, individual, etc. Multiple layers building off one another, creating a very interesting mix of songs.
One last note, there could be more than the simple "Track Rank". Such as, preferences for which songs to play after one particular song. Better standardizing of info with the songs would be good too. Like linking to each track the release date, band/singer(s), album(s), etc. Wouldnt you love being able to tell your computer "Play Issues" (Korn)-- ironfroggy, Mar 26 2002 Please annotate if you vote. I would enjoy comments.-- ironfroggy, Mar 26 2002 I'm confused. How is the 'Track Rank' variable populated? If you populate it yourself, you're just telling yourself to play it more or less often. If you put a zero in there, surely that means that you don't want to hear it, so why not just throw it away? If you put 479,001,600 in there, it means "Play this a lot", so why not just play it a lot?If the variable is populated by someone else, why? You're then listening to someone else's choice of music, which is baked by radio, MTV, etc.In answer to your last question, no.-- angel, Mar 26 2002 Strangely enough, a friend of mine is working on a home jukebox system for his own use. The initial algorithm I think he's going to use is: • If there's something on the playlist, play it. • If there's nothing on the playlist, play a random song, weighted by how many times you've put it on the playlist.
Next time I speak to him I'll ask him about it. (May be a while as we don't see each other that often).-- st3f, Mar 26 2002 What froggy wants apparently is several different playlists. The default one would be: "My playlist" - which already is default. The others are all available in various websites, in some way, shape or form. What I think he's after is having something which communicates with his Playlist what is trendy, i.e. web lists. As for me, I don't care what other people are listening to - I mean - Korn? Come on. If I wanted to listen to - oh never mind.-- thumbwax, Mar 26 2002 Maybe I've misunderstood, but what you describe here sounds exactly like Launch.com. I don't know about the sub-lists, but Launch does everything else you mention here.-- waugsqueke, Mar 26 2002 Except Launch now has commercials, and a lot of tracks aren't available because they can't get the rights.
It's been a while, but doesn't MusicMatch Jukebox have this feature?-- bookworm, Mar 26 2002 you arent understanding. as for the "Track Ranking" variable, this is user defined. such as, when a song is playing and you like it, you might vote it up a few notches. when you decide you've heard one too much, you vote it down some. its like a ratio. say you have two songs, voted at 100 and 200. the second song is played twice as much as the first. the reason for grabbing votes from other sources is that then you dont start with a flat list. you could have a home network with this and everyones votes go to their list, the list above that, etc. the closer to your initial list, the more weight your vote. roommate finds a good song, votes the hell out of it, you hear it a few times because youve not voted on it. you like it, so you keep it alone, vote it up, or vote it down just a tad (that roommate goes crazy sometimes, you know). third roommate doesnt like it at all, so it sets it to whatever the lowest vote value is. that lowest value is not 0, because the values would be signed.
also, angel, i see where you are confused. yea, you could just manually play it alot or not at all, or whatever. but the idea is that the system then learns your preferences. with more standard song info as i talked about, it could even learn from things like "oh he likes these techno songs, here's some more he might like too."-- ironfroggy, Mar 26 2002 In broadcast radio, you have different stations for different genres of music. I assume the database would allow groups to form for all sorts of tastes. This would allow thumbwax to avoid hearing Korn if that's not his thing.
Unlike broadcast radio, this system would be truly democratic, with airtime given always to the most demanded songs.
The advantage of this over just listening to your own MP3 list over and over is that you get exposure to new music that others apparently like. I like that any band could drop their song into the system and let it fend for itself, without "big business" influence. If it plays once and gets a few "up arrows", it might go catch on and go big. But if you keep it this open, you'd wind up with idiots posting all sorts of silly garbage to the play list I guess.
How do you get all this playlist down to the user anyway? I don't think you can push all the MP3s down, and the streaming audio stuff is too poor quality.
Anyway, I giving a + to the idea.-- spartanica, Mar 27 2002 ironfroggy, Launch.com has a rating system, almost exactly as you describe your Track Ranking, and it also has the preference learn-and-suggest system. (Or, at least it used to, in light of bookworm's anno. I've not used it for a while. Launch.com was recently acquired by Yahoo! so maybe things will change again.)
It also has (had?) options for "don't play this song anymore" and "no more songs by this artist".
Have you checked it out? I think you'll find your idea is baked. And if not by Launch, I'm sure there must be another company (Spinner?) doing this now.
Many of the big labels have come out with their own online music sites lately... I understand they are pay based. They might offer these services.-- waugsqueke, Mar 27 2002 This is baked, but I can't find the download. It's called "Winamp Auto DJ" or something. Hehhhhh.-- ashibaka, May 02 2002 random, halfbakery