I dunno, Fred. I've been hoping for a killer music discovery solution for years and for a music blog aggregator too. Hypemachine just doesn't do it for me.
First of all it seems too narrowly focused on indie rock---I can't be the only one who listens to dozens of genres of music but all the music stuff online is extremely siloed. Second, I find the interface all but impenetrable--not enough info up front per post to give me a hook to enter, nothing as functional as Techmeme. Third, I despise the name--"hype" has nothing but negative connotations for me.
One other thing, w/ respect to the Rolling Stone comparison, I also think that our cultural relationship to pop music is different than it was in the heydays of Rolling Stone. Culturally pop music is not nearly as central or shared as it was in the late 1960s, early 1970s. Also there's so much more music and so many more kinds of music available today (like the differences in TV programming between the network TV era and today) that my favorites and your favorites might have little overlap. Finally, we actually listen to music more privately than before thanks to portable players. Finally, the kind of magazine that Rolling Stone was when it was good (and that Playboy was when it was good)--w/ an editorial gatekeeper's package of content beyond just music reviews and infographics--was something that worked for a format and time that no longer exists. Not mourning its passing or bemoaning the difference, just noting that I think the comparison is apples to oranges.
Good luck to the guys. Glad it works for so many of you. As for me, I'm still looking for a solution.
fredwilson
· 11 months ago
you make a bunch of valid points. hype machine is for new music. old stuff isn't there very much. but its not by any means an indie rock focused service. there's plenty of hip hop and electronica there. possibly too much for my taste.
Jason_Chervokas
· 11 months ago
Yeah, I should have mentioned both indie rock and dance music, seems to be heavy on those genres.....I dig both, but I also dig country, classical, opera, jazz, blues, standards, etc... Have no real beef w/ Hype Machine (except the name), and I don't think we're going back to a "network tv" kind of central music discovery universe that radio, MTV, Rolling Stone, etc represented...but personally I'd love to find (or make) something broader & maybe a little more "curated."
DanBlank
· 11 months ago
Jason - I love Hype machine, but have to agree with you on these points. I use Hype Machine, am amazed by it, and feel it delivers value to me that few other services due. But it is still in its infancy. This is not a failing of Hype Machine, just an admission that our media and communication habits still have a ways to evolve. And I have to say, I am looking forward to it!
Thanks, have a nice evening. -Dan
aweissman
· 11 months ago
Hypem works because it solves is specific problem in an incredibly user friendly way. With an attention to detail (their rollover links, eg) and amazing design. The real measure of any products success is "would you recommend it to your friends." I cant count how many times I have done that with hypem.
But again, I thought you and my blogs were the Rolling Stone on our time? ;-)
fredwilson
· 11 months ago
We are too old andy
S.t
· 11 months ago
Fred -- I read something pretty cool on VentureBeat yesterday about The Beatles music coming online
Better than nothing but this is one of the all time great failings of the digital age
chrisherbert
· 11 months ago
Couldn’t agree more, the Hype Machine is amazing and if word of mouth recommendation is a success factor, then it’s just another reason why HM is doing so well; I may recommend this website/web service more than anything else out there.
They got flack from some old-time users when they changed from the white design to the new green design and removed some features (I liked the shuffle and repeat function in the old pop-up Flash player) but the new design and features (especially the favorites, your own and your friends, and the popular playlist) is much stronger and valuable.
Whenever I hear new music, whether it be via blog posts, the newspaper, NPR, at the coffee shop, etc., I go straight to HM to find it and listen to it. I still use Last.fm b/c of the iPhone and iTunes integration but for discovering new music and bookmarking/saving those new discoveries, that all happens on HM.
jon
· 11 months ago
When you think about it, iPhone integration could really make a difference for Hypem...
Taylor McKnight
· 11 months ago
After Zeitgeist is done, it's one of the next things on our list ;)
fredwilson
· 11 months ago
i might have to get an iphone then taylor!
chrisherbert
· 11 months ago
Can't wait for that Taylor, thanks!
kidmercury
· 11 months ago
i'd prefer to see hype machine do more syndication-based stuff, namely help others develop their own music community. in other words rather than trying to define music culture, i think it'd be cool if hype machine focused on helping fredwilson.fm and other music blogs build their own powerful music community. hypemachine has the music and the technology, though i don't think it has the community feel that a blog or a niche social network can have. perhaps they'll explore this route in the future.
not hatin' on it, though, i think it's great. as noted it is low cost and profitable. IMO well positioned to survive economic armageddon.
jon
· 11 months ago
I am huge fan of Hypem, I discovered it this year and am constantly impressed by it. My feeling is that they need to leverage all the info they provide for register users on top of a big social graph to truly scale in terms of users. I believe that If they adopt FB connect (and/or google and myspace alternatives) they will become the quintessential case study of success for this service. I commented earlier in this here: http://gheller.wordpress.com/2008/12/31/5-web-s...
twitter: jgheller
fredwilson
· 11 months ago
that's a great idea. a lot of my music social net is on tumblr and twitter though. but i agree that FB connect is the biggest oppty for them
fascinated
· 11 months ago
We are thinking about FB Connect.
If we can determine that they are not data-predators in our use case, we'll be happy to integrate. This is something that's often overlooked in all the excitement about their new service. For comments, it may work splendidly, but if you are looking to cultivate a relationship with your audience, it may not be the case.
Seth Lieberman
· 11 months ago
HypeM embodies for me one of the key trends that I have noticed about my music consumption over the past several years-- namely that I consume music much more the way I consume other content now. That is, music has become much more "snacky content" to me than it use to be. With awesome new music discovery engines like Hype Machine, the phenomenal ease and speed of downloading MP3s and the real and significant price drop in music I buy a lot (3-4 times as much) more music and churn through it than I did 5 years ago. At $3.50 an album on emusic and $7-8 on Amazon I'll take a flier on almost anything, listen to it for a week and love it, leave it or let it wander into playlists. I now tend to go from band to band *much* more quickly that I ever did in the past which for me, is great. I love new music and so I tend to burn out on something less often than I use to and thus enjoy it much longer.
And so, if you have not heard Marching Band: Spark Large I highly recommend a listen to a track since I still love a human recommendation the most.
Poor Lester Bangs, God rest his soul, is no doubt rolling in his grave... although he did see all this coming.
fredwilson
· 11 months ago
i didn't know lester but my bet is he'd be happy to see where we've gotten with this stuff
Jason
· 11 months ago
I wonder if that comparison really works. Certainly in terms of prestige, it's not there yet. Brand recognition alone makes me think that. I'm sure most artists would still prefer to be somewhere in RS before somewhere in HM. Now, in terms of bringing new music to music enthusiasts, HM might have something, but I'm still not sure it's the same. I think of the path to the top of the charts as funnel. You start with all the artists and they get screened out, by various methods (downloads, radio play, media commentary, videos, soundtracks), until only a few are left. Does HM replace Rolling Stone, or has someone found a way to build another, wider layer of the funnel on top of the screening mechanism that is Rolling Stone?
Graham S.
· 11 months ago
As someone who doesn't have high quality internet access at work, it's a real bummer to see the plethora of streaming music sites out there. I guess I'll keep up my discovery at night and go with what I know during the day...
Paolo
· 11 months ago
Yes, Hypem is a nice aggregator, but I seriously doubt that they can "define music culture". IMHO Last.fm is much more powerful in that sense. Today it's the end user that actually defines music culture. Pretty exciting, isn't it?
Bryan
· 11 months ago
I am a youngish music feen and I have to say, the Zeitgeist represents more than just a smart, algorithmic, best-of-tastemaker platter. It's more than just "defining music culture". It's the future of music itself. Best 2008 today. Music in general in '09 and beyond. The template they created with Zeitgeist and their everyday site can be reproduced for any genre, any size, any sets of social media, etc. Couple tweaks, a twist of imagination. This is exciting stuff.
alphanaliste
· 11 months ago
Rolling Stone was counter-cultural, but not actually based on stealing -- sorry, I mean, borrowing without asking -- intellectual property. Hype Machine sure is.
Here's how it works:
1. I'm a musician. I sign a deal with a label. (Yay!) 2. My record is done. My label releases my music. (Yay!) 3. A music blogger likes my record (Yay!), rips it, and posts it on his blog without permission or compensation. (Oh, no!) 4. Hype Machine aggregates that blogger's feed, along with the link to my 'borrowed' music. (Gulp.) 5. Lots of people listen to that 'borrowed' track, favorite it, etc., instead of going to iTunes or even my MySpace site. (Sigh.)
But I guess Hype Machine is pretty awesome. I'm sure I can make enough money from touring and selling t-shirts; just wish they would have asked.
fredwilson
· 11 months ago
They pay internet radio royalties on their streams
And they are generating fans like radio used to do in the old days
And they also sell a lot of music through links to amazon, emusic, and itunes
I guess you could take the position you should get asked permission before someone tells people how great your music is
But I think that¹s pretty old school thinking
alphanaliste
· 11 months ago
Hype Machine pays radio royalties?!?!? Since when? And how? They don't even normalize the data -- how would they know who to pay??!?!
fredwilson
· 11 months ago
Anthony told me they pay them. I believe him.
alphanaliste
· 11 months ago
Respectfully, Fred, HyepM can't even match from a recommended song on its site to a specific Amazon.com MP3 file.
Look, for example, at the post on the front page touting Neil Young's awesome song, "Don't Be Denied." Anthony's Amazon link goes to a 'dumb' search result on Amazon which doesn't even list that song on its first 24 results.
Incidentally, I love HypeM also. Love!
fredwilson
· 11 months ago
I've never had that problem
I bought two albums today from hypem links
Devotchka on amazon mp3 Beach House on emusic
Both links worked perfectly
I can tell you that I buy more music from hypem links than any other source by a factor of 5-10
It's an amazing way for musicians to reach new fans and sell their music
alphanaliste
· 11 months ago
Okay, I give up. :)
I love it also. But he's not paying royalties on his main site, he's not asking artists for permission (no matter how wonderful you and I think it is for them), and he will get sued.
fredwilson
· 11 months ago
He hasn't yet
And he's been operating hypem for going on three years now
fascinated
· 11 months ago
I think this was due to an issue specifically with searching the Amazon MP3 store. With other stores such as iTunes and eMusic we match as closely as possible, except that it's not always possible :)
Olivier Rosset
· 11 months ago
i am a music business affair working with most of the artists and labels hitting hypemachine most popular page. >HM is dope for promo and .. maybe they pay somebody... but not the right holds for sure. most of the popular indie blogs, labels and artists (justice, bloc party, chromeo,subpop, jagjaguare, world circuits,defjux, warp, domino ...) are starting to use fairtilizer.com: soundcloud features meets hypemachine meets tubemogul distribution and datas ...plus wolrdwide perfomance agreement deal, and probably the best A&R traction right now. content owner generated is the key for new music start ups. thats why myspace made it in the first place.
fredwilson
· 11 months ago
Olivier - you run Fairtilizer, right?
Can I use it to post music to my blog?
olivier rosset
· 11 months ago
U r more than welcome Fred !
Fan
· 11 months ago
Anthony's not being completely honest with you. Yes, their one Hype Machine radio station is SoundExchange compliant, but they don't pay any royalties on the vast majority of music they are streaming on the site itself. It's pretty disingenuous to pretend that Hype Machine doesn't do anything except piggyback on other people's infringement. Whether that is right or wrong is up for debate (I personally believe that we need to institute some sort of compulsory license so that people like Anthony can build sites like Hype Machine without worry), but right now what he's doing is illegal.
fascinated
· 11 months ago
You are correct here, our streaming radio station is operated via SoundExchange & etc societies.
vruz
· 11 months ago
I love how Songbird integrates with Hype Machine and music blogs in general. They're not only great music observers, they're getting brilliant businesswise as well.
Can they scale ? Does everything good have to scale ? Can they stay afloat doing this for years with minimal private investment ?
Whatever makes them happy will make their public happy. I think they're a good model for a different breed of web startup.
neil roseman
· 11 months ago
I do hope hypem isn't the RS of our time, particularly as regards music -- that would mean Hype Machine had already outlived it's usefulness. By the early 70's RS wasn't a place to discover new music - they didn't even review "Space Oddity" for example. Maybe they defined the culture if you lived in the Bay Area in 67-68 but that was 40 years ago. This only got worse as time went on.
I do love Hype Machine, but like many say, it's not very good outside of a few categories -- and it's not about "new" versus "old" stuff. It more reflects what is already popular in the current music culture. To that extent, things like hypem (and last.fm) reflect rather than define the music culture.
fascinated
· 11 months ago
We are constantly working to make the set of blogs we monitor more diverse, but there is a pretty distinct demographic bias even in the people who start blogs, so at a certain point we can only do so much.
The lack of ability to listen by genre is intentional. We want you to listen to things outside of your comfort zone. Yes, it is more abrasive than Pandora, but it's worth it.
kenberger
· 11 months ago
Biggest difference (between RS and HM) is that Anthony is soooo not Jann Wenner.
(a compliment to Anthony)
fredwilson
· 11 months ago
That¹s for sure!
DanInCambridge
· 11 months ago
I emailed Anthony nearly a year ago asking if I could develop a hypemachine app for the Android platform (this was when it was just a emulator, no phone). He wasn't interested in exposing the hosted music which was a bummer.
And now they plan to develop an app for the iPhone, ugh.
fascinated
· 11 months ago
We've been debating the iPhone app idea as well (though we will do it v.soon). There are some issues with usage on that platform that have been turning us off:
a) Anything potentially audio-related may compete with iTunes b) Streaming over 3G eats your battery alive c) Lack of background support may render certain things impractical d) Esoteric development process. Is it really worth $20-40k to hire a dev to build this, given a) b) and c) and then have a limited audience use this?
The Android is a cool platform but the phones so far have been missing headphones jacks (I just couldn't believe that actually happened!) and have not moved that many units. Likely some of the iPhone issues, in particular b) still apply here too.
We aren't totally against it though, so perhaps we should discuss more.
cipals15
· 11 months ago
Isn't it an old idea? Hype machine is a ranking system right? Ranks the most talked-about on the music industry... But if they make it users friendly and more useful.. More people might use it.. :)
Danielle
· 10 months ago
hello. my name is danielle mcgrath , and im inlove with nick jonas <33
All Comments
First of all it seems too narrowly focused on indie rock---I can't be the only one who listens to dozens of genres of music but all the music stuff online is extremely siloed. Second, I find the interface all but impenetrable--not enough info up front per post to give me a hook to enter, nothing as functional as Techmeme. Third, I despise the name--"hype" has nothing but negative connotations for me.
One other thing, w/ respect to the Rolling Stone comparison, I also think that our cultural relationship to pop music is different than it was in the heydays of Rolling Stone. Culturally pop music is not nearly as central or shared as it was in the late 1960s, early 1970s. Also there's so much more music and so many more kinds of music available today (like the differences in TV programming between the network TV era and today) that my favorites and your favorites might have little overlap. Finally, we actually listen to music more privately than before thanks to portable players. Finally, the kind of magazine that Rolling Stone was when it was good (and that Playboy was when it was good)--w/ an editorial gatekeeper's package of content beyond just music reviews and infographics--was something that worked for a format and time that no longer exists. Not mourning its passing or bemoaning the difference, just noting that I think the comparison is apples to oranges.
Good luck to the guys. Glad it works for so many of you. As for me, I'm still looking for a solution.
Thanks, have a nice evening.
-Dan
But again, I thought you and my blogs were the Rolling Stone on our time? ;-)
http://venturebeat.com/2009/01/05/norwegian-woo...
They got flack from some old-time users when they changed from the white design to the new green design and removed some features (I liked the shuffle and repeat function in the old pop-up Flash player) but the new design and features (especially the favorites, your own and your friends, and the popular playlist) is much stronger and valuable.
Whenever I hear new music, whether it be via blog posts, the newspaper, NPR, at the coffee shop, etc., I go straight to HM to find it and listen to it. I still use Last.fm b/c of the iPhone and iTunes integration but for discovering new music and bookmarking/saving those new discoveries, that all happens on HM.
not hatin' on it, though, i think it's great. as noted it is low cost and profitable. IMO well positioned to survive economic armageddon.
twitter: jgheller
If we can determine that they are not data-predators in our use case, we'll be happy to integrate. This is something that's often overlooked in all the excitement about their new service. For comments, it may work splendidly, but if you are looking to cultivate a relationship with your audience, it may not be the case.
And so, if you have not heard Marching Band: Spark Large I highly recommend a listen to a track since I still love a human recommendation the most.
http://www.musicthinktank.com/blog/cyber-fluff-...
Here's how it works:
1. I'm a musician. I sign a deal with a label. (Yay!)
2. My record is done. My label releases my music. (Yay!)
3. A music blogger likes my record (Yay!), rips it, and posts it on his blog without permission or compensation. (Oh, no!)
4. Hype Machine aggregates that blogger's feed, along with the link to my 'borrowed' music. (Gulp.)
5. Lots of people listen to that 'borrowed' track, favorite it, etc., instead of going to iTunes or even my MySpace site. (Sigh.)
But I guess Hype Machine is pretty awesome. I'm sure I can make enough money from touring and selling t-shirts; just wish they would have asked.
And they are generating fans like radio used to do in the old days
And they also sell a lot of music through links to amazon, emusic, and
itunes
I guess you could take the position you should get asked permission before
someone tells people how great your music is
But I think that¹s pretty old school thinking
Look, for example, at the post on the front page touting Neil Young's awesome song, "Don't Be Denied." Anthony's Amazon link goes to a 'dumb' search result on Amazon which doesn't even list that song on its first 24 results.
Incidentally, I love HypeM also. Love!
I bought two albums today from hypem links
Devotchka on amazon mp3
Beach House on emusic
Both links worked perfectly
I can tell you that I buy more music from hypem links than any other source by a factor of 5-10
It's an amazing way for musicians to reach new fans and sell their music
I love it also. But he's not paying royalties on his main site, he's not asking artists for permission (no matter how wonderful you and I think it is for them), and he will get sued.
And he's been operating hypem for going on three years now
most of the popular indie blogs, labels and artists (justice, bloc party, chromeo,subpop, jagjaguare, world circuits,defjux, warp, domino ...) are starting to use fairtilizer.com: soundcloud features meets hypemachine meets tubemogul distribution and datas ...plus wolrdwide perfomance agreement deal, and probably the best A&R traction right now. content owner generated is the key for new music start ups. thats why myspace made it in the first place.
Can I use it to post music to my blog?
They're not only great music observers, they're getting brilliant businesswise as well.
Can they scale ? Does everything good have to scale ?
Can they stay afloat doing this for years with minimal private investment ?
Whatever makes them happy will make their public happy.
I think they're a good model for a different breed of web startup.
I do love Hype Machine, but like many say, it's not very good outside of a few categories -- and it's not about "new" versus "old" stuff. It more reflects what is already popular in the current music culture. To that extent, things like hypem (and last.fm) reflect rather than define the music culture.
The lack of ability to listen by genre is intentional. We want you to listen to things outside of your comfort zone. Yes, it is more abrasive than Pandora, but it's worth it.
(a compliment to Anthony)
And now they plan to develop an app for the iPhone, ugh.
a) Anything potentially audio-related may compete with iTunes
b) Streaming over 3G eats your battery alive
c) Lack of background support may render certain things impractical
d) Esoteric development process. Is it really worth $20-40k to hire a dev to build this, given a) b) and c) and then have a limited audience use this?
The Android is a cool platform but the phones so far have been missing headphones jacks (I just couldn't believe that actually happened!) and have not moved that many units. Likely some of the iPhone issues, in particular b) still apply here too.
We aren't totally against it though, so perhaps we should discuss more.
my name is danielle mcgrath ,
and im inlove with nick jonas <33