#bigdatamarketing

(this is our October 2013 newsletter: get on the list to receive our news directly http://hivebeats.us4.list-manage.com/subscribe?u=1e5e7a03e94bbdaba78469948&id=2692218aa9) This month at @sfmusictech I was struck by the amount of talk around the problem of music discovery.  I wonder, is it a false problem? A problem invented by music nerds with some technical background, who think they can ultimately help with this complex matter called taste (cough!) But if you scan any social network you will repeatedly come across people wondering what to listen to next, people bored with what they are listening to, people who feel disconnected from today's music. Those are calls for solutions. But wait, what does this have to do with radio? Our thesis at HIVEBEATS is that people trust recommendations whose source they trust, recommendations that make sense to them.  And that's why we believe radio with their DJs is still such a powerful discovery tool. It's powered by a human for whom I have an amount of trust and I can easily switch the dial! I can directly affect the music I am hearing in a meaningful way. The problem? After desperately switching the dial for a few minutes, I often end up preferring the humming of my car and turn off the radio. Imagine a radio where you start with many DJs at once. As you listen you have the option to remove the ones who pushed music you didn't like, and that way you fine tune your music discovery sources.  Imagine a radio where you can discover which DJs first discovered the new band you like and add him to your radio station with no effort.   This is what HIVEBEATS is: the future of radio. As always check the system stats at the end of the email, we have passed 2.5 million data points, including some data from a few international streaming services such as Saavn and Gaana (Hindi and Bollywood music).  Burc Sahinoglu Founder Read the whole newsletter here: http://us4.campaign-archive2.com/?u=1e5e7a03e94bbdaba78469948&id=a54bba5938&e=675e4e1031

HIVEBEATS April News Hello, Since our last newsletter 2 major (expected) announcements in the digital music landscape: #TwitterMusic and Google #PlayMusicAllAccess . We only know that Google's product is $10.00 per month and it's a mix of #Spotify premium and #iTunesMatch . Twitter Music is about#musicdiscovery , but we think their efforts stop short of providing a good experience. HIVEBEATS provides much better discovery opportunities out of the box. You see music that is actually liked by people through our  HIVEBEATS Index™, a proprietary formula combining the number of plays and the number of people who are listening to that particular music. Through our YouTube integration we provide a whole world of discovery, content that no streaming service provides today. Live Concerts? Check. Special Appearances? Check... We're still refining it but it's blowing our socks off! As usual don't skip the latest stats at the end of this email. As of today with only 28 users, we are fast approaching 1 million data points. Burc Sahinoglu Founder Follow us on Twitter @hivebeats, we're going to start posting there, we swear! What's new We are working on HIVEBEATS what feels like 25/8. Go to the site regularly and give us your feedback. HIVE management One of the main improvements gives the user the opportunity to manage his HIVES while listening to music. Like what you hear? See who's listening to that music, and add him to your trusted HIVE. Don't like what you hear, just remove him. This approach addresses one of the main shortcomings of discovery systems. We provide a connection between what you are listening to and why plus we provide you an easy way to adjust what is suggested to you. HIVEBEATS Index™ Based on your feedback, we have tuned the ranking algorithm. We are experimenting with privileging the number of persons over total number of plays.  Some maniac listening to "Eye of the Tiger" a million times will not dominate the results. What's next We're still in alpha, but we're going to take on more users. Please spread the word, pass this email on. All a new user has to do is login at https://www.hivebeats.com with their Facebook credentials. To get ready, we are optimizing the sign-up process. We are adding new machines and made some major optimization to our backend. When we started in February, a new user had to wait 12 long hours before being able to use HIVEBEATS. Today we are down to 3 hours, and our goal is to get each new user in right away. The Numbers as of May 15, 2013 System Stats testers: 28 (+ 47%) connections: 17474 (+ 36%) percentage with public streams: 16.5% (+1.5%) music plays collected: 895,659 (+51%) unique songs: 186,326 (+30%) unique artists: 40,775 (+25%) unique albums: 71,229 (+30%) Top Services Spotify: 78% of plays (+) iHeartRadio: 8.5% of plays (-) rdio: 6.5% of plays (-) Top Tracks (April 2013) Get Lucky, Get Lucky, Daft Punk Stubborn Love, The Lumineers, The Lumineers Madness, The 2nd Law, Muse Top Artists (April 2013) Justin Timberlake Macklemore & Ryan Lewis Mumford & Sons Top Albums (April 2013) The 20/20 Experience, Justin Timberlake The Lumineers, The Lumineers The Heist, Macklemore & Ryan Lewis Copyright © 2013 hivebeats, All rights reserved.