From Wired How-To Wiki

One of the most-hyped additions to Apple's new iTunes 8 is the Genius Playlist feature. Pick any song in your iTunes library and ask the software to recommend additional music you might like using that original song as a jumping-off point, and you'll get a list of songs tailored to your tastes.

There are actually two ways to use the Genius feature. One is the Genius Bar, a sidebar which slides out of the right side of the iTunes application window and recommends similar songs for sale at the iTunes Store. The other is the Genius playlist generator, which is activated by a small button in the lower-right corner of the application window. The Genius button looks like a small atom, only without a nucleus -- just the whizzing electrons.

The Genius bar uses collaborative filtering and popularity data from the iTunes store. The Genius Playlist button uses local meta information associated with the files, like genre, rating, play count and other data stored in the ID3 tags.

Here are some tips for getting better Genius recommendations.

This article is a wiki. Got other Genius advice to share? Log in and add it.

Rate your music. Those stars are there for a reason -- use them! It will give iTunes extra insight about what you really like and what you don't.

Don't customize genres. You may think Aphex Twin's Come to Daddy belongs in a genre like "Avant Garde" or "Techno," but the iTunes Store database (which Genius queries) insists it's "Dance/Electronica." Change your genres to conflict with iTunes and your recommendations will suffer. Try to keep your genres matched with what's in the iTunes Store.

You can also check your genres against what's listed at FreeDB.org. Search for the artist and album and go to the Details view. Click on the link to disc's data file and look for the genre -- it will be listed after the "DGENRE=" parameter.

Watch out for multi-disc albums. iTunes will try to recommend music it thinks you don't already own. So why does it keep recommending a song off disc two of that Deep Purple Fireball remaster even though you already have it? Make sure your tags reflect the fact both discs 1 and 2 have been imported by entering the appropriate numbers in the Disc Number fields. Also, are you sure you imported both discs? Time to double-check.

Deselect poor matches. When iTunes generates a new Genius playlist and you see a song that you feel doesn't belong, deselect it by removing the check box next to the song. Then, click Refresh at the top of the list and the song will be replaced.

It gets better over time. As more users upgrade to iTunes 8, more libraries are scanned and processed. If your iTunes Genius is spouting nonsense, try it again in a month.

credit - http://howto.wired.com/wiki/Get_Better_Genius_Recommendations_in_iTunes

TuneWiki: Android’s iPhone-Like Media Player That May Become The Platform’s Standard

Jason Kincaid

16 comments »

Israeli startup TuneWiki has come a long way.

Soon after the iPhone’s launch, the company released an application that allowed users to view highly-accurate lyrics synced karaoke style to any song stored in their music library. But because there was no App Store at the time, TuneWiki was limited to users with jailbroken (hacked) iPhones. Despite this, the application has racked up over 1.2 million downloads since its launch - a number competitive with those seen by the most popular Apple sanctioned apps. The company raised a funding round from Benchmark Capital’s Israel fund.

And now, after nearly a year of developing a Karaokee-like music program for hacked iPhones, the company has developed an application that stands a good chance at becoming the standard media player on Google’s forthcoming Android platform.

At first glance, the Android version of TuneWiki has more than a little in common with the iPhone’s default media player (except with a black color scheme). Songs are sorted into spartan but easy to navigate lists, and playing a song displays its album art alongside standard playback controls. The player integrates TuneWiki’s extensive database of lyrics, which are played karaoke-style alongside your songs (lyrics are pulled from a user-modified database). There’s also support for YouTube videos - if you search for a song you don’t have, the player will automatically take you to the YouTube version, which also support synced lyrics.

Perhaps most exciting is TuneWiki’s integration with location services. Because the player can optionally tell TuneWiki’s servers what song you’re listening to, it can offer an interactive map that displays musical tastes across the world. This could be a huge hit on college campuses, where breakthrough artists tend to be discovered first. It’s also fun to find people in Dubai who listen to Kelly Clarkson (see the video below).

One of the most key features to the iPhone’s success is its ability to sync seamlessly with a user’s media library through iTunes. TuneWiki recognizes this, and is doing everything it can to make syncing as painless as possible. The company will be offering plugins for iTunes, Windows Media Player, and Songbird, and will also feature support for wireless syncing across Bluetooth or Wi-fi.

Some of these features are already offered on the jailbroken iPhone app, but the Android version is clearly TuneWiki’s focus, and for good reason. The company is one of fifty finalists in Google’s Android Developer Challenge, and has received extensive support from Google and a number of other companies during development.

Android is an open platform, which means users (or at least device manufacturers) will be able to install whatever media player they want onto the phones. Despite this freedom, there will probably be one or two media players that emerge as the platform standards. TuneWiki has positioned itself to become one of these, with features that go above and beyond those found on the iPhone, and a focus on keeping things as simple as possible.

Here’s a demo video we took on the app running on the Android emulator:

iPhone Apps We Like: Pandora

Pandora for the iPhone is as easy to use as the website. Just type an artist you want to hear, it will build a radio station of similar songs and broadcast them in FMish-quality. The picks are usually accurate, but the science behind picking them is hilarious: The app explained that I have a soft spot for "boastin' lyrics" and "headnodic beats". Pandora works well over Wi-Fi, 3G, and even EDGE.

Our own Chris said he played it over EDGE while driving around Southern California and didn't lose signal once. Other pros include album art and allowing you to skip, bookmark and thumbs up/down tracks for better accuracy. While all of these features make Pandora a great app, just thinking about it makes my battery drain. [App Marathon]

credit - gizmondo.com

Pandora Usage Stats Prove It’s iPhone’s Killer App

Jason Kincaid

48 comments »

Pandora’s internet radio has always been one of those sites that was really cool in concept, but too inconvenient to ever go mainstream. The service was long tied to computers only, and while it eventually expanded to special internet radios and some mobile phones, it still has yet to become a household name. But with the launch of Pandora’s new iPhone app last Friday, it looks like the service is about to hit critical mass. It’s a free, mobile, digital radio station that only plays music you like and lets you skip the stuff you don’t. And it rocks.

The personalized music service employs a small army of 50 musicians to create a “Music Genome” that describes each song according to 600 attributes. Listeners input a few of their favorite artists, and the site analyzes the Genome to serve up an endless stream of recommended music.

We introduced the app last Friday, when we called it our “flat out favorite application so far”, and since then it hasn’t failed to impress. Streamed music plays flawlessly over Edge and 3G networks - during a 40 mile drive I didn’t once run into any kind of skipping or static. Even better, the app currently has no advertisements playing, though we can probably expect that to change.

Unsurprisingly, Pandora’s usage stats are overwhelmingly positive. Pandora is currently the fourth most popular free app on iTunes (behind Apple’s Remote, AIM, and WeatherBug), and has reportedly been seeing a new listener every 2 seconds. Usage over the weekend hit an all-time high for the service, with 3.3 million tracks streamed to iPhone listeners alone. Perhaps more impressive is the retention rate of listeners, who are averaging over an hour of listening per day.

If there’s one thing that could kill the service, it’s ads. Pandora is going to need to monetize the app somehow - let’s hope it allows us to pay an upfront fee (say, $10) to avoid the annoying interruptions that have made listening to traditional radio a painful experience.

credit - techcrunch.com

& techmeme.com - Jason Kincaid / TechCrunch:

TuneUp Automatically Updates and Fixes Your iTunes Metadata

Windows only: Music application TuneUp scans your iTunes library to fill in and clean up your music's metadata, including album art. After you install it, just point it at songs in your library you want to clean up; TuneUp fingerprints and analyzes them and then provides a diagnostic overview of your missing or incorrect metadata. You can then verify and clean up all your metadata with the stroke of a button. In theory it's very similar to previously mentioned MusicBrainz, but it's an altogether fresh take with a few more features.

For example, similar to the previously mentioned iConcertCal, TuneUp lists upcoming concerts for artists in your library; it also lets you explore your music through a web digest of YouTube videos, articles, and merchandise related to bands you like. I just finished testing TuneUp on around 40 entirely unlabeled or poorly labeled tracks, and the results have been impressive. Not only does the app update the metadata with accurate, consistent information, but it does it all live, updating your library on the fly. TuneUp is ad-supported and free to use, but you're limited to 500 cleans and 50 cover art look-ups per month. A premium version without any limitations is also available for a $12 annually or a lifetime price of $20. TuneUp is Windows only, with a Mac version planned for later this year.

TuneUp’s iTunes Helper Launches To The Public

Jason Kincaid

5 comments »

TuneUp, the iTunes plugin that uses digital fingerprinting to help clean up your iTunes library, has launched to the public. The plugin is currently available to Windows users, with a Mac version expected this fall (annoying, by the site’s own admission). You can download it here.

Users can get a free version of the software that limits them to 500 song tag cleanups and 50 album cover lookups (suitable for only the smallest music libraries), or a paid version with no usage restrictions. The cost of the paid version is $12 per year, or $20 for a lifetime subscription. Both versions of the software also include features that will show YouTube videos related to the song currently playing, as well as concerts in the area.

For more details, refer to our extended introduction to the site from the launch of its private beta last May.

credit - techcrunch.com

Midomi Song Recognition iPhone App Can Name That Rickrolling Tune You're Humming

You've been able to sing or hum a tune into midomi.com and have it take a shot at guessing what you're crooning for a while, but today this novel tech that uses a user-generated database of recordings for comparison has found what I think might be its perfect home on the iPhone. Instead of lobbing up "Happy Birthday" or any similar, piece-of-cake pap, we thought we'd give it a more intermediate-level test suitable for our times.

Yep, aside from a few server hangs, the thing works as advertised.

UPDATE: As many commenters pointed out, Shazam is a similar app. Ran it through the Rickroll humming test and it couldn't come up with a match, but it does seem like it's highly superior for picking up and ID'ing ambient music, like the Al Green playing on the office soundsystem right now.

[Midomi]

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