Music recommendations systems such as that used by Amazon (the Amazon system is based on an earlier system called Firefox - before 'Firefox' was a web browser) work surprisingly well provided they already know about a good proportion of your music collection. This makes their recommendations more accurate and stops them recommending stuff you've already got. Now, I can't be bothered to enter my whole CD collection into their rather clunky interface but I do already have all my CDs (and quite a lot of vinyl too) on iTunes so all that's needed is for iTunes to submit this data to Amazon, get the recommendations back and give me links to buy the recommended music at the iTunes store and at Amazon.-- hippo, Jan 04 2006 Goombah http://www.transpos.../pr_02_goombah.htmlThis is interesting, but not quite what I meant [hippo, Jan 04 2006] last.fm http://last.fmwhat [hippo] wants, and will now have. [neilp, Jan 04 2006] Slimscrobbler http://slimscrobbler.sourceforge.net/ [hippo, Jan 04 2006] iTunes Genius http://www.apple.com/itunes/features/not tried it yet...... [xenzag, Sep 25 2008] Pandora Radio http://www.pandora.com/I don't think you can buy directly from the website, though. [ghillie, Sep 26 2008] How to confuse the iTunes Genius http://blogs.pcworl...rchives/007713.htmlInteresting review of the new feature. Looks like if it's not in the iTunes Store, you're out of luck. [jutta, Sep 26 2008] mystrands http://www.mystrands.com/A correspondent sent in a plug for this general social network music recommendation system that also can scan iTunes libraries, among other sources of playlists. [jutta, Sep 26 2008] i am surprised that apple aren't doing this already. clever.-- rainbow, Jan 04 2006 sod itunes, use Audioscrobbler (by last.fm) which does charts/recommendations based on what people are listening to, rather than what they have in their library (plugins for iTunes, WMP, winamp etc.).-- neilp, Jan 04 2006 [neilp] - interesting, and there's some logic in basing recommendations on listening habits rather than what's in my music library. However, I listen to most music through my SliMP3 player whose SlimServer software uses the iTunes library. There isn't a AudioScrobbler plugin for SlimServer so I'm not sure it'd work for me.-- hippo, Jan 04 2006 [neilp] - aha! - since my last anno, someone's written a plugin - see link.-- hippo, Jan 04 2006 [hippo] back of the net ! I was just about to say I thought I'd seen some slim out there. What's your profile name, I guess you're not hippo ?-- neilp, Jan 04 2006 [neilp] - haven't signed up yet - I'll let you know when I'm on though-- hippo, Jan 09 2006 I doubt it would actually work. My experience with ITunes suggests to me that a major problem will be my 80 gig iPod, which can hold far more music than my 24 gig laptop... even assuming I would care to have all my music on my laptop at all times.
My experience with Amazon.com also tells me it will be an epic failure, as I've told them at least 12 times I already own certain movies and DVDs, which they continue to recommend to me.-- ye_river_xiv, Mar 18 2008 Damn those clever people at Apple! This idea is now a feature in iTunes 8.-- hippo, Sep 25 2008 Ian! That is a wholly unnecessary amount of flesh in that avatar. Go on, conform and put a shirt on!-- Jinbish, Sep 25 2008 Didn't they just add this with the genius feature in the new iTunes?-- ModernDivo, Sep 26 2008 Yes. That's what [hippo] just said...-- Jinbish, Sep 26 2008 I have used Last.fm for a few years now and it's very good at connecting songs and artists. AFAIK it does this simply by looking at the stats for one artist and comparing the data from everyone else who also listened to the artist. Anyway it works very and I've found a lot of music I like but which I would have never heard on commercial radio. It also has all kinds of tag radio, similar artist radio, group radio, friends radio, etc., all of which are really excellent. If you use iTunes a lot and love music I would highly recommend it.-- mecotterill, Sep 27 2008 random, halfbakery