Tel-Aviv based MeeMix launches its beta program today. Like Pandora, MeeMix is a community music/Internet radio service for the 15-35 demographic. The idea being that any user can create a highly personalized, taste-based music channel with minimum fuss. The major differentiation between MeeMix and Pandora or Last.fm is the way it goes about forecasting personal taste.
Typically, there are two ways to perform such predictions:
- “Nature” (Pandora) – Decision making is based upon on the compatibility between one song and another—personal taste not being part of the equation.
- “Nurture” (Last.fm) – Decision making is based upon a environmental factors—song compatibility not being part of the equation
Steve Krause wrote a great post about Nature vs. Nurture in the music space.
Like Pandora, MeeMix breaks down each song, artist and user down to an elemental level. Then its recommendation engine analyzes the combination of a user’s profile, music selection and behavior to create a customized radio station. In my personal tests, MeeMix’s music selection was near perfect.
MeeMix has a rich social networking feature set, including reviews, thoughts (public user postings), secrets (private user postings), etc. The most important of these features in my opinion is being able to listen to the same song as other channel subscribers in real time. And for the egomaniacs in our audience, you can even print off a t-shirt with your channel name and number of subscribers (courtesy of the Zazzle API).
MeeMix was founded in mid-2006 by CEO Gilad Shlang, formerly the User Experience Manager at 888.com, and Dr. Ricardo Tarrasch (Chief Scientist), also formerly of 888.com with a doctorate degree in Biopsychology. The two possess in-depth experience in creating and leveraging user experience and communities based upon algorithmic forecasting. The company is funded by angels and currently employs a team of 9, including the former lead developer of ICQ, musicologists, and a community/SEO specialist.
The business model is currently based on album sales and will expand to songs, ringtones, and ads. Seeing as there’s so much algorithmic magic under the hood, I won’t be surprised if in a year or two licensing its engine will become MeeMix’s core business.
In the mean time, the team is focusing on learning its community and expanding its service both in scale and in application range (embeddable web widgets and a Facebook app).
Try MeeMix
We have 1000 invitations available to the MeeMix private beta here.
This guest post is written by Roi Carthy, an Israeli-based startup consultant. Roi will be covering the Israeli startup scene for TechCrunch.
Well, I signed up to try it out…are we supposed to get invites automatically? I got an e-mail that basically said I was added to the queue.
A lot of interesting IT companies have been making good headway in Israel. Going to be interesting to see what’s next…
I also tried to get invite and same thing… Anybody have invites for vidora.tv? Been hearing alot of whispers about them, but no invites.
me too…it looks like they are simply putting us in a queue.
I’m 37, does that mean I am too old to use it? I guess so, cuz’ I see “pacman” in their logo……
Amy, you will always be my Ms. Pac Man.
Amy, I can’t believe you blew off our party.
Can’t believe it? oh the horror…..Arrington being rejected
@Steve B
Vidora.tv isnt an israeli company. Im pretty sure they are based out of eckerd college in tampa, if you know anyone out there you can prolly still get an invite.
you can check out more Israeli web startups here http://web2spot.blogspot.com
Roi, correct me if I’m wrong, but I remember when Tim was making the rounds for Pandora and I thought there was some built in AI for repetitive choices made by a user? – i.e. you log into and it takes into account your past selections in order to build new ones (not just based solely on the songs)? Maybe I misunderstood their pitch a long while back (again showing my age… geesh). One of the compelling points of their argument (again back then mind you, this was probably 5 years ago now) was that there would be music kiosks in the stores where you could also login to your account, thus not tied to computer access?
Allen – doesn’t it look like pacman eating an amœba?
Mike – but I lost 11pounds in the torrential LA sun, doesn’t that count for something??
Sweet (attempts to grab free beta invite).
This has the potential to really blow up among hobbyist music producers as well I think. If you could mix individual tracks as well this would be amazing. Anxious to try it out though.
Wow, finally some did it right.
SOMEONE*
All a futile discussion unless S.1358 and H.R. 2060 pass, of course.
Call your senators and representatives, if you want to see this kind of thing work at all.
Amy it’s not pac-man, its the ghosts… i think its inky on the left, blinky in the middle and winky on the right.
Hey guys n girls,
Amy, you can not be too old to experience the MeeMix, have a look at your inbox.
Dear fellow members of the net; the first batch of invitations is on its way to you.
Enjoy,
Gilad
MeeMix CEO
Hmm – this is interesting. MeeMix is a TelAviv company yet they are registered as a business in Delaware. Also, here is one of their terms:
1.1 U.S. Residents. In order to use any of the Services, you must be a resident of the United States of America. You represent that you have read and understood, and that you agree to be bound by, this Agreement.
Gilad, can you provide any clarification here?
Gilad- great logo. It looks like a singing pacman (or a throwing up pacman, depends how much you drank).
The important thing is- you can not forget this logo. Good Luck!
Hey Orit – thank you for your kind words.
Indeed our logo was tested in different saturation levels, and passed.
All the best
Ive tried last.fm,finetune,songpedia.. and others nothing can match meemix’s algorithm.Seems lot like pandora.
I wonder whether I have unlimited skips??
A lot of options to fill in and I would like to see some skins in the future (I understand its beta).For me rite now its meemix and pandora
I would appreciate an invite. I am actively tracking recommendation services.
How do you kick-start a station? Just by entering a single artist, or do they do some scrobbling to gain insight into your preferences?
Signed up for the beta but still waiting, if anyone has an invite to share it would be much appreciated.
Seems like a me too with a twist. What about the catalogue? will they face the issues as Pandora? Will foreign users be able to use it? Was this company financed? How do they deal with copyrights? this needs some digging…
Thanks again for another beta invite, I can’t wait to try this one =)
Still waiting on an invite.
is Meemix USA only? or are us Canadians allowed in the pool. Ever since Pandora booted me, Ive been stuck on last.fm…
Yuck….
the israeli scene host a very interesting startup by the name of http://www.musicgenome.com/ (yes, like Pandora) and that provides an interesting and different approach to music discovery. this should have been mentionned here.
Simply not interesting. where is the crunch?
Good luck on your first post Roi!
May the crunch be with you
I’m waiting for my invite…
When people talk about “personalized music”, I take it literally. Web 2.0 companies are only pretending to offer music as a “service”, but they fall short. If music was really being offered as a service, they would look more like my startup, http://www.tailoredmusic.com.
“When people talk about “personalized music”, I take it literally. Web 2.0 companies are only pretending to offer music as a “service”, but they fall short. If music was really being offered as a service, they would look more like my startup, ”
God you suck you spammer. and your “start up” too.
fall short? you dont even rise to short you midget.
This meemix station looks nice, waiting for my ticket now.
Allen @18
Lots of Israeli startups are registered in Delaware as it has very cheap and easy company registration laws and processes. It makes sense to do this from the outset, especially when the big purchasers of tech companies are US-based or NASDAQ (unless you’re a gaming/betting company, in which case Cyprus, Gibraltar or Isle of Man are better for an exit in London). Also, if you want to sell to large businesses/government, you’re going to need a local address (although this is not the case with MeeMix). I’m sure there are a bunch of other legal/commercial reasons.
Roi, Gilad and Ricardo,
Good Luck guys. It’s a pleasure to read you and about you
Take care.
Someone’s got an invite for MeeMix ?
hhhmmm… seems to be interesting. online streaming radios despite of the fees are truly invading the www. amazingly, we as average users are benefiting from their generosity. they’re simply broadening our choices. thanks mee-mix. i’ll try you sometime.
again the same song…
when those music sites will realize that HUMANS have CONTEXTUAL needs and preferences????
I love to listen Punk when playing, Brazilian bossanova when working, and classical music when cooking…
nowadays, with last.fm, pandora and finetune the recomendations just don’t work! because the try to find a “common parameter” between punk, bossanova and classical… this is absurd.
hope meemix takes this in consideration,
if not, duck off.
Normally I would not “push” the company I work for because I think it is not “sportsman like” conduct and a turn off, however, since we are on a similar space, check out http://www.elhood.com. We actually work with the labels and artists. We are working on a recommendation system as well, which I have been calling proactive search and actually discussed in passing when some posts appeared about some new search engine a while back.
The site is “cool” and in less than a month we will launch a new look and feel that will make it even cooler and by the end of October we will be adding a lot more features too.
In any case, my apologies for “pushing” elhood.com. I promise it will not happen very often
What is wrong with you spammers? If you want techcrunch to write an article, contact them! nobody cares about your spanish website or that it’s being changed next month.
Very often? how about never again!
I defended the article. Can I get an invite now?
looks very interesting. seems more like jango than last or pandora. jango’s the first such site that actually seems fun to me.
So far the best comparing with Pandora and Last.FM. Loving it like hell.. Btw, I have invitations to MeeMix.. http://www.pain...nvitations.html
cheers
hi nice post, i enjoyed it