from the February 16, 2006 edition - http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/0216/p13s02-stct.html
How they know what you like before you do
The high-tech tracking of people's preferences puts firms in
touch with tastes.
By Kate Moser | Contributor to The Christian Science Monitor
The other night, a few friends sat in Tracey Kennedy's Rock Island, Ill., living
room listening to music. A song by a band no one but Ms. Kennedy knew started
to play, and everyone wanted to know who it was.
Kennedy revealed that it was Silversun Pickups, an
under-the-radar Los Angeles band she'd found using an
Internet music service called Pandora.com. For her, the
website's personalized music recommendations have
sparked new listening habits. "It's like I've come back to
life," says Kennedy, a 30-something computer
programmer. "I'm getting all these vitamins I need."
Since she started listening to Pandora at work in late
October, Kennedy has bought about 35 new albums.
That's music to the ears of those who make recommendation technology. By
2010, one-quarter of online music sales will be driven by such "taste-sharing
applications," predicts a study released in December by the Berkman Center for
Internet and Society at Harvard Law School and research firm Gartner.
Over the past decade, e-commerce has taken a cue from the notion that friends
give the best recommendations. Personalized suggestions have become more
commonplace as various forms of media converge, industry professionals say,
and this could both change the entertainment industry and give consumers more
power.
What started with Amazon.com's "collaborative filtering" approach, which made
product suggestions to consumers based on what they bought, has become a
more precise science.
Kurt Beyer, president of Riptopia, a digital media processing company, divides
recommendation technology into two general schools: theoretical and empirical.
The theoretical approach bases its recommendations on qualities inherent in a
product. The empirical approach is similar to what Amazon.com does, gathering
large amounts of data about the buyers of a product to make recommendations
based on demographics and interests.
Recommendation technology is "exploding," claims Daren Gill, vice president of
ChoiceStream, a Cambridge, Mass., company that powers recommendations for
AOL, Yahoo Movies, and eMusic, among others.
ChoiceStream makes recommendations based on
about 25 attributes, such as "macho," "romantic,"
"mainstream," and "obscure." Eight editors monitor
the technology to make sure that when new music or
movies arrive, the automated system places them in
the appropriate category. Then algorithms create
recommendations for users based on their previous
choices.
MusicStrands, a free online music service based in Corvallis, Ore., launched last
year and is working to make "music discovery" a social activity. Last week, the
company rolled out a new version that lets users see what their friends are
listening to in real time.
"They don't want to sit down and listen to what other people are programming for
them," says Gabriel Aldamiz-echevarria, MusicStrands vice president, in a
telephone interview.
With a library of more than 5 million songs, MusicStrands provides instant
recommendations based on what someone is listening to at that moment.
Listeners can build and share playlists and "tag" music with terms such as
"contemplative" or "driving."
This kind of social interaction, the Berkman Center study predicts, will help
democratize musical tastes. "Instead of primarily disc jockeys and music videos
shaping how we view music, we have a greater opportunity to hear from each
other.... These tools allow people to play a greater role in shaping culture, which,
in turn, shapes themselves," the study states.
The Berkman study found that 58 percent of participants said they were exposed
to "a wider variety of music since using any online music service."
That kind of discovery is what Pandora is banking on. "People are so hungry to
get reconnected with music," says Pandora founder Tim Westergren. "When you
get into your 20s, music's just going to play a smaller role in your life.... You
become another person who hasn't bought an album in - you name it - number of
years."
To counteract that inertia, Mr. Westergren started the Music Genome Project. At
Pandora's offices in Oakland, Calif., about 40 musicians classify about 8,000
songs per month. They identify a song's fundamental traits from among 400
possibilities. The traits of a Beatles song, for example, might include "melodic
songwriting" and "a clear focus on recording studio production." By identifying
these attributes, Pandora connects listeners with all kinds of music - from
mainstream to obscure. At its website, people can enter a song or an artist that
they enjoy. Based on the qualities of that song or artist, Pandora then plays other
songs it thinks they'll like. If they like it, perhaps they will click on a link to an
online store and buy the music - and Pandora will get a commission.
Movie renters are expanding their horizons, too. Customers have contributed
more than 1 billion ratings on the Netflix website, says communications director
Steve Swasey, adding that 60 percent of movies rented by its 4.2 million
members are based on computer-generated recommendations. Those curious
about what films are most popular can check out the Netflix Top 100, or they can
enter their ZIP Code and find out what's hot in their neighborhood.
Community-driven Netflix recommendations are useful, says Mike Kaltschnee,
who publishes a Web log, HackingNetflix.com, which is supported partly by
Netflix and Blockbuster ads. Mr. Kaltschnee, who lives in Danbury, Conn., says
he sees friends dropping red Netflix envelopes into the mail, and conversations
about what people are watching start there, and then move online. "It's sort of
turned into a little club," he says.
But advances in recommendation technology have raised concerns about
privacy, too. Last month, iTunes customers complained about a new feature
called "MiniStore," a list of personalized recommendations based on an
individual's music library. Critics say Apple shouldn't have access to such
information.
"The more that the company tries to get into the mind of the consumer, the more
that they try to aggregate consumer information, there is the danger of blurring
those lines of what is mine and what is yours," says Mr. Beyer of Riptopia.
Will Internet companies sell profiles of their customers to others? Westergren of
Pandora says record companies have asked him many times "if any of this stuff
is for sale." It never will be, he adds.
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