Comments on: Musical Genres & iPod – Harness The Wisdom Of Crowds http://e-strategyblog.com/2007/08/musical-genres-ipod-harness-the-wisdom-of-crowds/#utm_source=feed&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=feed Online marketing insight by David Erickson. Mon, 15 Mar 2010 11:05:48 +0000 http://wordpress.org/ hourly 1 By: Christoph Herd http://e-strategyblog.com/2007/08/musical-genres-ipod-harness-the-wisdom-of-crowds/comment-page-1/#comment-41 Christoph Herd Sun, 30 Sep 2007 23:19:59 +0000 http://estrategyblog.com/blog/?p=296#comment-41 Excellent comment all. Unfortunately, Apple prides itself in not listening to any of its users. I would like to offer the following thoughts (without solutions): 1. There are actually two problem clouds, I believe. Cloud 1: Me; Cloud 2: Them. 2. Cloud 1: Me I think this problem cloud would be solved by giving me multiple, customizable genres. Genres, of course, are supposed to serve a purpose. In iTunes and the iPod, I can group my music by genre, then shuffle-play that genre only. It has to do with feelings. Sometimes I "feel" like listening to my Celtic only, sometimes I feel like listening to my German. A correctly genre-tagged music collection lets me do this. The issue here is that not only are my genre not your genre, so I need to be able to build and define my own genres and assign songs to them, but genre are not unique. As stated, songs can be, and very often are, in multiple genres, and genres enable "taste cloud" playing. What do you feel like hearing? Oh, my German Rock stuff. And that's not even a recognized genre. This solution would fix the Me problem I'm having. 2. Clound 2: Them We all like certain "kind" of music. That's what we call a Genre. Thus, if I like Classical, I don't want to see Hard Rock bands when I shop for more. It is a waste of time to make me look at it and makes me cranky. Eventually, it makes me not look at that music source anymore. So, how do I browse and find the music I want to buy more of? That's the "Them" part. The stores, the music industry, the bands, and the music itself. All need to get to the right customer. That requires that music is more-or-less correctly tagged. That's where a "social tag" discussed might help. Why would stores like iTunes spend effort on doing all this research? Because it results in a customer who can find what he wants to spend money on, rather than what's this week's special, or what's new. That's how commerce works: any product has to find the customer that's looking for it, not the 500 customers who don't want it. So far, neither Apple nor the music industry has understood that there is a glass wall out here between them and me, and my money does not pass through the glass wall. That wall is that it doesn't matter what's available, only what I can find and identify. For music, the link between the huge amount of songs available and what I like, is the Genre (I think). It allows me to browse the cloud of what I might be interested in and then pick. The result: I send money to someone and a sale is made. Bottom line: The music industry must master (or at least tame) the Genre problem. This will enable customers to find what they are looking for. THAT will increase sales and make me enjoy my music collection more. Excellent comment all. Unfortunately, Apple prides itself in not listening to any of its users. I would like to offer the following thoughts (without solutions):

1. There are actually two problem clouds, I believe. Cloud 1: Me; Cloud 2: Them.

2. Cloud 1: Me
I think this problem cloud would be solved by giving me multiple, customizable genres. Genres, of course, are supposed to serve a purpose. In iTunes and the iPod, I can group my music by genre, then shuffle-play that genre only. It has to do with feelings. Sometimes I “feel” like listening to my Celtic only, sometimes I feel like listening to my German. A correctly genre-tagged music collection lets me do this. The issue here is that not only are my genre not your genre, so I need to be able to build and define my own genres and assign songs to them, but genre are not unique. As stated, songs can be, and very often are, in multiple genres, and genres enable “taste cloud” playing. What do you feel like hearing? Oh, my German Rock stuff. And that’s not even a recognized genre. This solution would fix the Me problem I’m having.

2. Clound 2: Them
We all like certain “kind” of music. That’s what we call a Genre. Thus, if I like Classical, I don’t want to see Hard Rock bands when I shop for more. It is a waste of time to make me look at it and makes me cranky. Eventually, it makes me not look at that music source anymore. So, how do I browse and find the music I want to buy more of? That’s the “Them” part. The stores, the music industry, the bands, and the music itself. All need to get to the right customer. That requires that music is more-or-less correctly tagged. That’s where a “social tag” discussed might help. Why would stores like iTunes spend effort on doing all this research? Because it results in a customer who can find what he wants to spend money on, rather than what’s this week’s special, or what’s new. That’s how commerce works: any product has to find the customer that’s looking for it, not the 500 customers who don’t want it. So far, neither Apple nor the music industry has understood that there is a glass wall out here between them and me, and my money does not pass through the glass wall. That wall is that it doesn’t matter what’s available, only what I can find and identify. For music, the link between the huge amount of songs available and what I like, is the Genre (I think). It allows me to browse the cloud of what I might be interested in and then pick. The result: I send money to someone and a sale is made.

Bottom line: The music industry must master (or at least tame) the Genre problem. This will enable customers to find what they are looking for. THAT will increase sales and make me enjoy my music collection more.

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