Tuesday, November 22, 2005

 

Yahoo Launch Algorithm

I've been a Yahoo Unlimited subscriber for a few months now. A large catalog of music on demand for $5/month is hard to beat. One feature of Yahoo Unlimited is access to the premium version of Launch radio. Both services allow you to rate the music. Launch radio will serve up music based on your ratings.

Launch radio is pretty good, but I have noticed how its seemingly random radio broadcasts work.
  1. Three and Four star songs, artists, and albums will be high in rotation UNLESS the album or song was released in the last year. In that case, it will rare they make an appearance.
  2. Do not mark something a 3 or 4 star if you think you will get tired of it. Vanilla Ice is clearly a 4, but too much Ice makes him very vanilla. ;-)
  3. All music in rotation will be at least a year old UNLESS it is a lesser known artist. Almost anytime I see the "2005" copyright come up, it's accompanied by an artist name I do not recognize. This is an "irritating feature". I have no doubt they are using Launch for market testing and selling the information.
Sure, I can load up Yahoo Unlimited and play whatever I want, but I don't want to baby-sit the player. Just play the music and mix it up.

Comcast gives subscribers a free radio subscription to Real's Rhapsody. It does not offer ratings, but you can setup a channel with artists which will influence its selections. The mix is pretty good. I do not notice the new music blocking mentioned in item 3. New or old, it's all music.

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