Tumblr Discovers Music Discovery

For record labels and investors alike, music discovery is the holy grail when it comes to music online. Many of us tend to listen to songs that we have in our collection over and over, and that prevents us from finding anything new. Usually that's because we don't have a trusted source for new music and don't want to spend the time sampling new music without finding anything that suits our tastes. A reliable discovery method that knows our tastes is always welcome.

Just about every music service has tried to fill this void, some more successfully than others, but the ultimate discovery service is still elusive.

Blogging site Tumblr thinks it might have the answer. From their over 95 million users, the company will select a group of editors that share music, and their choices will appear on Tumblr's "Explore" page. They also have a new music.tumblr.com blog that will post announcements and music recommendations as well.

Both of these will be available to mobile users and non-Tumblr members, and will be officially rolled out this week at SXSW.

Music discovery really hasn't changed since the 50s. It used to be a radio personality who exposed us to something new. We liked and trusted his taste and knew that his selections generally jibed with ours. That still holds true today.

Although programmers have tried valiantly to design a recommendation engine that works, it still comes down to a human to point us in the right direction. That's why Tumblr's decision to employ editors as the basis of their recommendations is such a great idea. Of course, you still have to pick the right editors. We'll soon know how well they've done that.

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