Goombah 0.511 is now available. It's the biggest release we've made this year in terms of user-visible features. (Earlier releases this year focused on things like stability and scalability.)
(Brief aside for any wondering "What is Goombah?": Goombah is Mac OS X software that uses distributed computing methods to enable each individual to find their truest musical taste-mates, wherever they may be, without any need to enter ratings or other information, based solely on the contents of their iTunes music libraries. The population of Goombah users is searched to find only those individual whose musical tastes most intimately match yours. One of the most import goals of Goombah is to create a true alternative to mass-marketing, by means of a kind of supercharged word-of-mouth. Since each person's music library is shown to others with extremely similar tastes, word about new, high-quality artists can reliably spread from person to person, "under the radar" of the mainstream music world. We hope this will enable a very large number of very high-quality, non-mass-market artists to find their audiences.
These artists will include those who may make the easiest-for-everyone-to-enjoy music in the world, but who aren't photogenic enough for the cover of People Magazine.
And these artists will include people who make truly great music, but in genres that only appeal to small numbers of listeners. Or in wholly new genres the mainstream world isn't quite ready for... yet.)
Version .511 of Goombah lets you select friends and people whose music collections you particularly like to be "My Goombahs" so that they stay permanently in your personal list of favorite Goombah users, and you can monitor their music collections and include them in the statistical processing leading to recommendations.
It also makes it easier to exchange email with other Goombah users.
Important note to all Goombah users: GO TO GOOMBAH PREFERENCES, CLICK THE PUBLIC INFO TAB, AND PUT YOUR EMAIL ADDRESS IN THE TOP LINE IF IT ISN'T ALREADY THERE. THEN CLICK APPLY.
That way, people who discover your music collection because their tastes are extremely similar to yours, and who want to talk about your favorite artists with you, can do so.
Here's why I think this is important. One of the things that the mass-market music world does is create a sense of community. The top stars are so well publicized that everyone knows about them and can share their enthusiasms... this sharing with others is part of our experience of music. I believe that this is not a trivial thing.
Goombah can help non-maintstream musicians find their audiences, wherever they may be in the world. But therein lies a problem: our local friends won't know anything about them, since they aren't mass-marketed. And your friends may not like them even if they did know about them. So how can we have community for non-mass-market artists?
The answer is that we will have community online. That's why you should have a public email address in Goombah.
While there are disadvantage to online communities compared to hanging out with friends at the local bar, there are advantages too. Non-mass-market artists have far more opportunity for real interaction with their audiences than someone like Madonna does. Their audiences are smaller. The community that will form around each artist will be more intimate, and have more in common. And non-mass-market artists tend to be less money-driven than many mainstream artists are; they are making their music heard because they want to move people. If you have a public email in Goombah, you may hear from the artists you discover.
This blog will continue to discuss Goombah's evolution as time goes on.
Comments