Statistical analysis gets scary good when datasets get large. This has literally led to my music collection knowing what music I like better than I do. I was listening to the Yahoo Music radio player today because my laptop’s AC adapter died the death, and it stuck mostly to music that i already had in my collection, but then using the hive mind that they have down in the Valley (Silicon, not Brownsville) they played music that they thought I would like, and I did, a lot. For particularly good songs, I would email myself a reminder to download them.
When I got home I discovered that I had already downloaded the 2 artists’ albums I had just never gotten around to actually listening to them. This is because a month or so back I went crazy and downloaded every other album that they recommended to me, which amounted to like 8 gigs of music.
With 400 GB of storage, I kinda wish there was an option to optimistically download music so that I can sit down, tell my computer “play me music you think i’d like” and have a lag free experience enjoying unheard music and music that I’d heard but never remembered to download on my own. Oh well, I guess I’ll just have to wait another 12 months or so.
Connection to the last post: Amazon.com has made a business out of recommendation technology.