Future of Music Discovery (Score 2, Insightful)

Perhaps this technology isn't the future of digital music, and maybe not even digital radio (although it certainly could be) -- but I believe it will play an important part in music discovery.

And it might not be iRate or Gnomeradio in particular, but the idea behind them.

Even when just applied to indie artists, I've found dozens of bands who are fantastic using iRate. In the process I've thrown out even more music that I didn't find enjoyable at all, but in a reasonably short time I was discovering music that would have taken me ages to find in any other way.

Could this be applied to mainstream music? I don't see why not. How far away is the technology that allows me to have a custom radio station in my car and at home. I streams music, I rate it and a profile is built for me that is compared against other listeners from around the world. Seems better to me than listening to the various radio stations play the same songs every day, occasionaly adding something new . . . maybe even something I enjoy listening to.

Chris. (And I do help with iRate development, so I'm somewhat biased.)