Hey, Fortune! I know that as a Time Inc. publication in 2008, you're pretty much charged with putting a shiny happy gloss on news pegs for "interesting" business ventures out there, and doing so in word counts that are dwindling so quickly, you'll eventually be communicating via semaphore. (Or photo galleries. Or both.) But when you drop a statement like "Just as the political bloggers are altering the outcome of elections, MP3 bloggers are changing the way people discover new music" in an otherwise decent article on the Hype Machine, maybe you should actually hold up an example of that "discovery," so as to give your readers a little bit of context? Especially given that the one good thing the Internet music elite seem to be better at chewing bands up and spitting them out before they've even been partially digested than actually "discovering" them? [CNNMoney]

]]> http://idolator.com/399148/ http://idolator.com/399148/ Wed, 23 Jul 2008 17:00:00 EDT Maura Johnston http://idolator.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=399148&view=rss&microfeed=true

Say what you will about the tendencies of music bloggers toward the "hipper-than-thou," but the Hype Machine doesn't lie: A lot of them also think Chris Martin is 100% dreamy. [Hipster Runoff]

]]> http://idolator.com/386685/ http://idolator.com/386685/ Fri, 02 May 2008 14:30:00 EDT Maura Johnston http://idolator.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=386685&view=rss&microfeed=true

Getting 10,000 people who read music blogs to hit its front page at the same time proved to be too much of a challenge for the music-blog aggregator The Hype Machine, so the powers that be over there abandoned their virtual sit-in and threw open the doors to the new, pretty, spying-enabled version. [Hype Machine]

]]> http://idolator.com/tunes/they-were-probably-too-busy-downloading-the-carrie-underwood-album/-311266.php http://idolator.com/tunes/they-were-probably-too-busy-downloading-the-carrie-underwood-album/-311266.php Tue, 16 Oct 2007 09:14:36 EDT mjohnston http://idolator.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=311266&view=rss&microfeed=true

At least in terms of finding new shit to listen to. This graph is taken from the results of a straw poll put together by MP3 blog catch-all the Hype Machine to find out how its readers "discover new music," and as you can clearly see, the Internet is kicking human contact's ass!

Obviously a very not-so-scientific study, the results are noted by Hype Machine as "unsurprising" for a site that collects and filters a bazillion MP3 blogs, attracting a readership that's already disposed to hunting and pecking through links rather than leafing through a review section, with print making a higher showing than I expected to be honest. Growing up (pre-Internet obviously, because I'm ancient and/or we were too poor for Compuserve), I can say that print, whether it was zines or even the daily paper, would have easily trumped my friends' recommendation because they either had terrible taste or were exposed to only what broadcast media threw up. But I am a little surprised by the piss-poor showing from "intuitive" online radio, etc. in "Online Mechanical," which the folks at Hype Machine reckon might have something to do with "algorithms for recommendations haven't hit the tipping point of getting more rights than wrongs."

Hype Survey Results: How Do You Discover New Music? [Hype Machine via ]

]]> http://idolator.com/tunes/non_binding-results/what-you-always-feared-the-internet-is-now-more-important-than-your-friends-301740.php http://idolator.com/tunes/non_binding-results/what-you-always-feared-the-internet-is-now-more-important-than-your-friends-301740.php Thu, 20 Sep 2007 13:33:25 EDT jharv http://idolator.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=301740&view=rss&microfeed=true

Name: The Hype Machine
Address: hype.non-standard.net
High-faultin' description: "Audio Blog Aggregator"
Actual Purpose: Scamming the latest hot MP3s

Along with Elbo.ws, the Hype Machine is probably the best place to gauge which artists and tracks are being zipped around the crowded music blogosphere; it's also the best place to download said tracks for yourself, even if it's all legally kinda iffy. The Machine scans hundreds of music sites, looking for newly posted mp3s to add to the lengthy list on the site's front page. Since music bloggers lean toward indie-rock, their "most popular" chart is often heavy on TV on the Radio and Sufjan Stevens — big-name artists like Beyonce and Justin Timberlake pop up, too, but their labels usually make sure the tracks are swiftly yanked.

How To Use It
Tracks can be found by simply browsing through the site's charts and lists, or by using its fairly reliable search engine:

Once you find a track you want to hear, the Machine provides a bunch of listening options; you can go straight to the post itself, listen via any number of players, or go and buy it at iTunes (ha!).

If you wind up with a whole page full of songs that you want to grab, we suggest clicking "podcast." This will let you dump the song titles right into iTunes, and you can then "subscribe" to whichever ones you want. And so this...

...becomes this:

Now for the bad news: Because MP3s are sometimes hosted for just a few days, tracks that are listed on the Hype Machine might have already been pulled down, meaning you may have to jump from site to site to find a still-working copy of the newest Killers song. But between Hype Machine and Elbo.ws (which also gives you a snippet of the post), most songs are out there somewhere— and you can find out about music blogs who may have the same obsession with their cassingle collection that you have with yours. Besides, it's free music! Stop complaining, you ungrateful little klepto!