Real Genius

Just today, Apple introduced the iTunes 8 with this new 'Genius' feature. As usual, it was introduced as the new revelation, look one click and you have a playlist of the songs you like. How does this work? Oh, it just sends everything you play to Apple, completely anonymously of course, and then using the Apple algorithms (great name) they add other songs that match to the playlist from both your local library and, more imporantly, iTunes store, thus allowing discovery of new content.

How original, though wait, it kinda remind me of something. Mmm, ah, Pandora? Pandora, is a really genius service that matches songs by their musical characteristics, really good stuff. And what do you think happens to this great service as we speak? It is being muscled out of business by the music industry, first the international market and now the US.

In the world of "On demand" everything, discovery of new content is extremely important and can be achieved through social networking but also, through automatic recommendation engines. Now, I should not remind anyone, how well this works in advertising, see Google Ads. This is also working great in Internet radio, like Last FM, with features like 'Similar Artists', allowing you to discover new songs you might actually like. I think it is important, to maintain a clear distinction between the 'sponsored' recommendations and the regular ones, improve the quality of the engines, add more criteria and content variety. The more democratic and social those engines are the better it is for all of us.

Pandora is a really excellent service in this regard, I have discovered and purchased a lot of music while using it. It is a real pity to see it disappear, and the hear about the "great news" from the powerful and well connected Apple. Now I certainly don't say that iTunes should not introduce this feature, it's high time and this is the way of the future. But the current practice of the music industry, is extremely greedy, inconsiderate and rude.

Bring back Pandora.

On Demand

We are moving towards a world in which every movie, song or book is available to you on demand, instantly and at a reasonable price. In such a world, the biggest question for you is "what should I demand next"?

This is where the magic word "social" comes in, in most cases meaning just your good old friends. I know many people theses days that shun this word, staying off the mass market social networks as well as niche communities. In most cases these people state that they have nothing to gain from the lame online social interaction and they are way better off in the old fashioned, dark and dusty whiskey bars.

And I heartily agree, but...

In the 'on demand' world, social networks, in the wide sense, are the main demand drivers using a wide arsenal of technologies and methods to help you determine what you should demand next. I would like to talk about two methods that are used either separately or together I will call "recommendations" and "activity" based social demand models.

The "recommendations" model allows you to actively recommend someone you consider a friend some product or service and waits for the friend to pick it up counting on existing level of trust between you. Do not mix this with anonymous statistical recommendations (also sometimes effective) that are used in the likes of Amazon and Netflix and typically having the form of: "people who bought X also bought Y". I am not talking about those, though they undoubtedly have their place under the sun.

The "activity" model is based on your ability to watch your friends actions and find interesting things that they have done lately to follow on. Though it might seem like this has anything to do with the latest advancements in web technologies that allow and encourage everyone to open their life to the web, it is something that has been going on forever. Effectively, every time you tell your friends about something you did ("I went to the Zoo last Monday") and you express your opinion about it ("I loved it, the zebras are so cute"), you provide an opportunity for your friends to perform the same activity and build up their expectations for it.

The main difference between the models is that the first demands an action to come from the side of the recommender and the second uses the nosiness of the potential recommendees. Both models can be used together as they indeed are in Facebook and Boxee, the social media center. The latest success of follower based services such as the Twitter, as well as the good old blogs and live journals are all points to the case.