Category Archives: Music IR

The Tyranny of Simplicity, Redux

One of my ongoing research interest areas is in retrieval interfaces that allow more expressive and powerful statements of a user information need.  In that spirit, I wrote a minor rant last April about how the Apple iTunes smart playlist … Continue reading

Posted in Information Retrieval Foundations, Music IR | 1 Comment

Music Search: Exploration or Lookup?

TechCrunch is reporting a new Google Music service, purportedly to be released in about a week here in the U.S.: Matt Ghering, a product marketing manager at Google, has been one of the people talking to the big four music … Continue reading

Posted in Exploratory Search, Music IR | 3 Comments

Google Music China: Unprecedented?

There is an interesting recent post about the history of Google Music in China from an article by Michael Zhang in Global Entrepreneur Magazine.  Some excerpts: “It will play the right music without you having to give it any thought.” … Continue reading

Posted in Music IR | 1 Comment

Apple 2009 = ISMIR 2000

If you haven’t heard (probably not likely), Apple announced a number of upgrades to its iPod/iTunes product line today.  It is interesting to me because I see more and more Music Information Retrieval making it into consumer products. Genius added … Continue reading

Posted in Music IR | 5 Comments

Is Good Enough Good Enough?

“The Good Enough Revolution: When Cheap and Simple Is Just Fine” is the title of a new Wired article.  In it, Robert Capps makes the following point: The world has sped up, become more connected and a whole lot busier. … Continue reading

Posted in General, Music IR, Social Implications | 13 Comments

Universal, Google launch ‘Vevo’ Music Service

From Wired: Vevo will launch later this year, a collaboration between Universal Music Group and Google the partners expect to be the leading music video service in the world from day one. Google confirmed to Wired.com Thursday that all of … Continue reading

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Music Explaura: Exploration and Discovery in Action

Music Information Retrieval continues to be an excellent place to play around with the intersection of search, recommendation, user-guided exploration, and explanatory (transparent) algorithms. First, check out the announcement of Music Explaura from Stephen Green at Sun Research.  Stephen writes:

Posted in Explanatory Search, Exploratory Search, Music IR | 1 Comment

Google Music China launches

Well, the move comes 9 years after I suggested it to ’em, but Google finally launches a music service: http://www.wired.com/techbiz/media/news/2009/03/reuters_us_google_china Now, my only question is whether they have simultaneously been researching and implementing intelligent search algorithms to go with the … Continue reading

Posted in Music IR, Social Implications | Leave a comment

Music Retrieval: Algorithms or Explanatory Context?

At SXSW this year, Paul Lamere of The Echo Nest and Anthony Volodkin of Hype Machine engaged in a head-to-head panel about the utility of: Using computer algorithms (e.g. collaborative filtering, tag-based, content-based, etc.) to automatically recommend music, versus Using … Continue reading

Posted in Explanatory Search, Exploratory Search, Music IR | Leave a comment

Content-Based Audio Search

Long-time Music Information Retrieval researcher Pedro Cano has a new book out, based on his dissertation: “Content-based Audio Search: From Audio Fingerprinting to Semantic Audio Retrieval“.  From the review: Music search sound engines rely on metadata, mostly human generated, to … Continue reading

Posted in Music IR | 3 Comments