Indie music download subscription service eMusic is getting an overhaul. Individual artist an dalbum pages already have more of an AJaxy feel and incorporate YouTube videos and Flickr photos. On Friday, its homepage switched over to a new design centered around a new recommendation engine powered by MediaUnbound. Now, when you sign in as a member, you are presented with a grid of “Music You’ll Love” made up of personalized recommendations. You can also sort by “New Arrivals,” which tries to give you new music that you will like, as well as standard “Best Sellers” and “New and Noteworthy” albums selected by eMusic’s editorial staff.
Helping members find new music they will love is the key to eMusic’s business, and it needs to do a better job. eMusic has 400,000 paying subscribers who have downloaded 250 million songs since 2003. Members can download anywhere from 30 to 75 tracks a month before they have to start paying on a per track basis. Once people stop finding new music they want, they are more likely to cancel their subscriptions. Better recommendations would reduce that churn.
eMusic wants to be your hipster friend who tells you about the latest, greatest bands before you hear about them anywhere else. “How do we act like that hipster friend or that corner record store?” asks senior vice president Jack Welde. He argues that the new recommendation engine will help them do that.
Music recommendations are a hard nut to crack, especially from a cold start when the music service doesn’t know anything about your tastes. The site’s old recommendation engine provider, ChoiceStream, just wasn’t cutting it. The MediaUnbound recommendation engine combines both algorithmic and human inputs to try to come up with better recommendations right from the get-go. It also is supposed to get better over time, of course.
On the algorithmic side, the recommendation engine looks at every action you take on eMusic, including searches, listening to 30-second previews, saving albums for later, and actually downloading albums. A download is weighted more than a preview. It builds a model for each member that takes into account genre preference, popularity interest, newness interest, experimentalism and expertise. MediaUnbound also takes into consideration global music preference patterns across P2P networks, Web radio, blogs, and other MediaUnbound music customers.
On the human side, MediaUnbound has more than 40 music analysts that actively tweak the recommendation engine, and add in new music recommendations. They act like the independent record store clerks of yore. In fact, some of them used to be record store clerks, as well as DJs and musicians.
How are MediaUnbound’s music analysts different from the ones who classify music at Pandora? MediaUnbound CEO Michael Papish answers me via e-mail:
Pandora has created a feature factory of humans chained to headphones attempting to objectively rate the sonic features of every song ever made (well, ok, only ~200k hand-picked songs). We think this is a horrible use of use of the creative, constructive, opinionated, and (sometimes argumentative) resource called the human music geek.
In fact, he had the following critique for all the competing music recommendation technologies out there from iTunes to iLike:
—Pandora. Purely sonic-based as determined by team of human experts classifying every song into features. Not scalable. One-trick pony only able to determine that one song sounds like another song, not anything about user preference or other personalized recommendations.
—iLike. Purely algorithm-based utilizing only data from other iLike members. Service is meant to be embedded in a widget, not a full-fledged recommendation platform across an entire music service.
—Last.fm. Purely algorithm-based utilizing only data from other members and their scrobbles.
—AmazonMP3. Utilizes the Amazon recommendation platform which is based mainly on collaborative filtering. We assume they use some human tweaking, but they’ve never publicly stated this fact. The AmazonMP3 recommendations are crippled because they are based on regular Amazon recommendations which are very focused on closely related items (i.e. Bob Dylan’s _Blood on the Tracks_ returns Bob Dylan’s _Blonde on Blonde_. duh!)
—iTunes Genius. Sub-standard, algorithm only - developed in-house. Only uses iTunes data. Steve Jobs has creepy man crush on John Mayer and Jack Johnson.
—MySpace Music. Crazy flashing yellow buttons that randomly start playing Buffalo Springfield songs when you visit your friend’s page.
His critiques are more or less valid, but I’m not convinced he’s come up with anything better. With very limited testing, I found the recommendations to be hit or miss. I will reserve judgment until I play with it some more. If it is an improvement from before, then at least that’s progress.
But my big beef with eMusic is twofold: it offers an incomplete catalog (no majors) and you can only listen to a 30-second preview (unless you there is a YouTube music video available, which is embedded on artist pages—go figure). So I find myself toggling back and forth between sites with full streaming and eMusic to figure out whether I wanted to actually download an album. In an era when limitless ad0-supported streaming is now the norm, eMusic will remain a niche music provider. But if it can somehow figure out how to surface new music that no other service can, it will remain a valuable resource for hard-core music enthusiasts.
What is your favorite music recommendation engine and why?
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“In an era when limitless ad0-supported streaming is now the norm”… who are these limitless ad (or ad0
) services? I only know of Rhapsody.com (which is pay-for-unlimited streaming) and LaLa.com (you can only listen to each song once).
Thanks!
From the article: Pandora, iLike, Last.fm, MySpace Music.
I also personally love Spotify, although its recommendation engine is awful.
Lala.com is pay-for-unlimited streaming on a per-track basis, with no subscription. The “one listen” deal is for stuff you haven’t paid for (or uploaded).
I like Pandora, because it’s easy to use and I only need to tell it my favorite genres once.
I like pandora as well.
I love mixi music!!!
This is very interesting news. Im interested to see if they adopt this new design and the recommendation engine actually takes off. Im not really too sure it will but it is the last change eMusic have.
Steven Finch
http://routenote.com
Last.fm is my favourite. It’s recommendations are rarely off, and the community they’ve built is fantastic. Plus, the iPhone app is a perfect enhancement to an amazing website.
I like Pandora because of all the free apps that turn the service into a stand-alone music app with keyboard shortcuts.
Honestly, all of these music recommendation services have some fatal flaw. Pandora is probably the best if you’re a casual listener. But if you’re a real music geek it’s very unsatisfying as the genres can be very subjective and limited.
As a music blogger, the only way to satisfy my music fix is a combination of other blogger recommendations, Songbird and my Sonos player - which has Rhapsody, Internet Radio, Sirius/XM satellite and all my personal music.
The great thing about Songbird is you can create a playlist from all your favorite blogs that will automatically capture the MP3s from their sites into a playlist. Very cool and timesaving feature.
http://www.getsongbird.com/
http://www.sonos.com/
OCMD, Nice blog!
I spend hours a day on emusic trying to discover different music, if this can cut down on the amount of time I spend on the site that would be great.
At the moment, the recommendations are way-off, but it’s still new so I’ll give it some time to catch up.
Glad to see emusic step it up.
Hours…. whewww
Except for Pandora, all the other approaches seem to work in a similar way (read: analyzing user behavoir). I wonder how they come up with recommendations for fresh releases when there no data about user behavoir.
“What is your favorite music recommendation engine and why?”
Well for me its http://www.mufin.com and not just because it pays my bills
Discovering music based on the sound makes a huge difference for me and i found new music that i wouldnt have got recommended on other sites.
http://www.spotify.com - doesn’t have great recommendation but looks amazing. the future of music.
I love Pandora because it is easy to use and its pre-selected play lists are awesome.
The critique that emusic does not carry the major labels isn’t really valid: it’s intended to be “your hipster friend”, as the review points out, and no hipster would recommend you Brittney et al.. Besides, recommending the major labels is easy and would be pointless. Emusic is great BECAUSE it carries so many indie artists, it actually tackles the difficult issue of finding and purchasing these indie bands. And besides, indie rock is the new popular (hence the pain that the majors are feeling right now), so I think emusic is well positioned.
Bingo. I’m so always so surprised/confused by gripes about emusic not having majors. I’d think they’d get more credit for staying focused on a target demographic.
You’re welcome to buy Warner Bros product with DRM or use internet radio stations to help you feel like you have a music collection. But comparing those to emusic is apples and oranges.
And Eric, your other complaint about the 30 sec samples… um, what online music stores give you full song preview? ITMS, Amazon mp3s, etc. are all 30 secs. Picking on the little guy for something that is status quo seems like unfair reporting.
You’d be surprised at how many “indie artists” are on major record labels. Some bands that were once considered indie or alternative also eventually move over to the majors.
Try looking for REM, Elvis Costello, or The Smiths on eMusic. You won’t find them. Those were not top-40 bands when I was growing up.
The whole point of paying for a music subscription is that you can get everything you want in one place. With eMusic, that is not the case.
I just wanted to put in a good word for Emusic’s stable of critics that regularly sort through the Emusic catalog. I’ve been a happy subscriber for a while. Say what you will about automated recommendation systems like Pandora’s (which I also value), but I don’t think anything online comes close to Emusic’s strategy of having people like Kevin Whitehead, Lenny Kaye, John Morthland, Michaelangelo Matos and others regularly reviewing new and old titles.
Someone recently asked me how I discover new music to buy (since I don’t listen to the radio much, or satellite radio). I hadn’t thought about it for a while, but the answer is that I almost exlusively find new music on Emusic.
Hey Erick,
Valid review. Have you found an example of a *good* music recommendation service?
Elliott
I’ve had the best luck with social recommendation systems such as iLike and Last.FM, but they are not perfect.
“What is your favorite music recommendation engine and why?”
Ummm… my friends and music critics?
I honestly don’t think this is an area where technology is ever going to help us.
Yeah.. This looks like MusicPinch.com - Much better..
I love emusic. I’m still on an old legacy plan where I get 90 songs for $20 a month, a very good deal, and I always want more.
Two things I wish they would add is the ability to put your account on hold for a couple months similar to what Netflix does, and I wish there was a better deal on their connoisseur plans. Seems expensive, and not quite the best deal, especially for some of us still on legacy plans.
Kyle- you can put your eMusic account on hold, for up to 60 days I think. It used to be a somewhat hidden option but now if you go to Your Account you’ll see an Account Hold option under Change Plan.
I’ve been a member of a couple years now, and eMusic is the place I go to discover new music. The editors are great, and I’m looking forward to trying to recommendation engine out.
just trying out this facebook connect
This is good to see. Lots of music on eMusic, just was’nt sure which stuff was good.
I like Pandora for discovering new electro and new wave stuff
Last.Fm is good too, but I find that after about 15 songs, their custom radio stations will stray from the original band I submit.
working on my own music discovery tool in the meantime.
yocheckthisjam.com
thank you
http://www.eskibirsaat.com
Very clean design…
Pandora is the best to date, but I agree, it just can’t scale. Still, I’d put $$ that there’d be plenty of struggling musicians/fans that would be willing to contribute to their database for minimum wage…They need donations!!
“New” is an interesting concept. e-music gives me a ton of new music every month (I’m on a 90 plan). This “new” music was all recorded before 1960 mostly, but it’s “new” to me. e-music is the *only* place that I buy music and it’s the only place that has the sort of stuff that I want to buy. Spotify is good, but I can’t keep the tunes and the ads are repellant.
does anyone like rhapsody’s music rec engine? wondering how the back-end guys (double v3 and others) compete with front sites like ilike or last.fm.
waiting to see how guys like echonest play out.
I’m currently a Pandora fan, and have been an off-and-on subscriber to eMusic. This kind of site-wide thinking was long overdue. However, I will admit to be skeptical after logging back in this week to check out the new features and finding recommendations that weren’t at all tuned to my likes and dislikes or previous purchases.
Time will tell if this is of any use to me. The user experience is better. The artist selection could use some improving. For now I will add it to all the other sources I use to enjoy new music.
for the highest quality new music (ie not part of the major label’s historical catalogue) i haven’t found any site that compares to OurStage.com.
I live emusic, and wish it gave me better music suggestions, but I music recommendation engines have never worked for me. I think if they do work for you it’s because you have bad taste in music.
It would be great if emusic has some kind of streaming feature, so you can listen to your bought mp3 directly online.
Apart from emusic, i make use of http://www.deezer.com . It doesnt really have a recommendation engine but a huge catalogue. And that’s the most important part for me as I actively search my way through the music landscape by reading reviews and checking out label catalogues.
I love emusic, but the fatal flaw in this design is that thumbnail album cover art is a *terrible* navigation device. Give us a band name, album title, something. The drop down selector doesn’t help either.
They’ve had the inklings of a social network for ages (shared user lists etc), but they seem quite welded onto their architecture - these design and feature additions are certainly welcome, but feel a bit superficial with all the innovative music sites out there these days.
I still discover most new music on our fantastic national youth broadcaster here down under (triplej) and then dig it up on emusic, if it’s available (territorial restrictions in the internet age are a joke).
Still, it’s good to see them adding new things. It’s just a shame it seems completely broken at the moment though… “We’re sorry, there was an error retrieving the selected albums.”
Nice article Erick. Michael Papish was mistaken in saying that Pandora is purely sonic-based. They’ve been using social data from their users to improve recommendations for years (although they don’t really consider themselves to be a music recommender).
I think that the data that sites like Last.fm can collect about music is much more interesting for a recommender since it is based upon what people are actually listening to, and not just on what they are clicking on or buying. Amazon or eMusic may know that I’ve purchased a couple of Deerhoof tracks, but they really don’t know if I like them. However, Last.fm and (and perhaps also the iTune Genius) can keep track of how many times I’ve played them and can get a much better idea of how much I like them. This data feeds directly into the recommender and yields much improved recommendations. It would be very difficult for eMusic and MediaUnbound to get this type of data from the eMusic storefront.
Still, the human-in-the-loop idea that Michael is proposing is interesting. Perhaps recommender systems like the Echo Nest, that web-mine all of the various mp3 blogs and music review sites will be able to algorithmically provide that human touch.
Your crunchbase widget data is out of date - eMusic is owned by a venture firm called JDS Capital.
I am an emusic subscriper and I am ELATED with the recommendation widget. It is definitely NOT spot on with everything, but it definitely shows me a lot of artists that are missed by music blogs and other review websites.
eMusic is the best deal out their for those who consistently buy music from independent labels. For $14/month I get to download 50 tracks… AND KEEP THEM. That is like 30 cents a track.
So give a little back to the artist and the independent label (I hear the labels get 60% of the profit from each download, and that ain’t bad).
So fill up your iPod with this AWESOME service.