The new Hype Machine aroused much… hype, you might call it. Fred Wilson was enthusiastic. Marshall Kirkpatrick was positively giddy: “beautifully redesigned… social networking component is very nicely put together… very handy Twitter integration… a widely loved service.”
My reaction is rather more mixed. I should start by saying that I value what I see as Hype Machine’s basic service: it helps me find music that people have posted to their blogs. I like the favorites feature: here are my favorites @HM. On the other hand, I am among those who regret the loss of the playlist feature.
The lack of playlists sent me scuttling over to my account at Seeqpod, where there be playlists. I just created one: CoverBurb, which starts with Thom Yorke announcing “the sexiest song ever written” and then Radiohead doing an amazing version of… Hey, go and listen for yourself, then enjoy the duet between Billy Bragg and Jill Sobule.
Seeqpod is very much in beta, so I won’t grumble about its awkward aspects. I will say that it’s not (yet?) as good at finding music as Hype Machine. For example, when I try to find Yo La Tengo backing Daniel Johnson on his song “Speeding Motorcycle,” I get Daniel doing it solo (which is great, but not quite what I was looking for).
Hey, wouldn’t it be good if it was possible to mash the two services together? Seeqpod has an API. Unfortunately, HM doesn’t. Or, if it does, it evaded my attempts to find it. (I have an email in to HM to check this, and will pass on the reply if it say anything other than “No, we don’t provide an API.”)
Andrew, I was beside myself with joy to read this post! Ha ha, ok, thanks for putting my enthusiasm in check – believe it or not I toned down my initial reaction. API is a great question.
As of late, I too have been looking for an API. My only hope has come from the fact that they (HypeM) use XSPF which can be found on their site w/ a little poking and prodding. Also, if you miss the player I suggest you check this out http://www.fiddelke.org/?p=158
Thanks, Marshall and EmmEff, for your respective comments. I still haven’t received any word back on the HMAPI, or lack thereof.
thanks for a HM clue — I find this social network has a clever buisness model, and it’s a very funny service indeed! (I like how it says “better together” based on my IP in the footer 😉
one thing I just wonder is, where do they get all that .mp3’s they play?
for example this track (“Cake – I Will Survive (Gloria Gaynor)“) refers to a blog post which returns 404’s for all the tracks it listed.
including, unfortunately, the “What Goes On” (have to admit Cake’s vision of the “I Will Survive” got me kinda entangled and curious about this one 😉
Hype Machine doesn’t really “get” any MP3s. It tracks music-oriented blogs and links, and builds an index of audio files and the posts that include them.
So if then audio file is taken down by a blogger, Hype Machine’s link will be broken.
yes, I as well thought HM is just a tracker myself.
but the fun thing is, whereas the HM page I linked above *still* plays that track, the blog it refers to does not anymore.
in other words (or direction *smile*): despite a link (to the .mp3) *is* broken on the blog which is tracked by HM, the track itself (mean audio track, a song) is still available for listening on the HM.
so, it looks like either they’re saving .mp3’s (once tracked), or have got an alternative sources.
just’ve checked HTTP log. yes, they *are* ‘caching’ .mp3’s somewhere inside.
this is good as the source blogs are often can be down.
[as wp.com doesn’t have any means to send a private comment right from this post comment box (as e.g. vox.com), feel free to delete this comment since I wouldn’t like guys and girl from HM would have problems, if there could be any.]
HM’s About page explicitly states that HM caches some music files. So your comment certainly isn’t going to get HM in to trouble it wouldn’t otherwise have encountered.
As for private comment, perhaps I should put my email address in the sidebar.