A test version of the niche social networking site MOG.com launched on Tuesday with the aim of hooking up people based on their taste in music — a sort of Myspace.com for music junkies.
The free site, started by former MTV marketing executive David Hyman with $1.4 million from private investors, requires users to download its application, MOG-O-MATIC.
The application catalogs the music on users’ computer hard drives and monitors what they play the most and what new tunes are added through online downloads and portable music players.
The data is analyzed several ways and posted to users’ MOG Web pages, which are open to inspection by the online world at large. Users also are encouraged to create their own blogs on their pages about their musical favorites.
The company does not generate music recommendations from the data but does provide 30-second sound links to all users’ collections as well as links to Apple Computer Inc’s iTunes Music Store and music e-tailer Amazon.com.
I don’t know what everyone else does; but, I don’t invite folks into my computer just to analyze what I have stored there. Which probably means there are millions of folks who will sign up for this service.
Sounds like a more invasive version of Last.fm
Of course, I wouldn’t expect people to post every minute detail of their lives on MySpace, but that doesn’t stop the 10s of millions of people on there.
Come on, everybody!
Let the RIAA’s lawyers see all the music files you have on your computer – without requring them to obtain a pesky warrant!
What harm could possibly come from that…? [grin]
[Note to self: who is financing this?]
This proves my theory that most people are STUPID! The people who download this are the same people who complain with spyware, stolen identities and crash-happy computers.
Aahh, those poor trusting souls.
One of my early versions of OneBigMix’s Blendir software did what Mog does — a complete scan and upload of the music directory’s file meta data. That’s when I decided that, as a potential user, it was a little bit too much information to give up. Anyway, I think listening trend data, not stored file data, is much more valuable.
Listening data helps me understand in what direction a user is moving. Stored file data is somewhat akin to Amazon sales data — it shows a single positive “vote” for the artist. Listening data provides a more ongoing, fluid picture of how engaged the user is with the artist. I may be convinced to buy an album from Amazon one day (or download it to my music directory), listen to it once, then find it sucks and never listen to it again. My purchase, or my storing it in my music directory, provides a single positive vote for the artist/album/song. With listening data, I provide a positive review of a song everytime I listen to it.