Music Searches on the Web
It’s been boom time lately for music searches on the Web. All Music Guide has been around for a long time, but new search tools are showing up with additional functionality. Google’s new music search service launched earlier this month with a bit of fanfare. Google enables you search for artists, albums, and songs, then dig even deeper into photos, news items, and Google Groups forum posts.
In our eyes, the two services that are even more promising are Last.fm and MusicStrands. Both services incorporate Web 2.0 frameworks into the traditional searchable database model.
Both sites use folksonomy to categorize and organize music. Users tag their favorite bands, leading to lists of recommendations for bands that have been similarly tagged by other users. Users can built playlists and create their own radio stations based on their personal picks and the picks of people with similar tastes. The sites also create communities by bringing together fans of particular artists or genres in blogs, forums, and user profiles.
Other services, like Pandora (which based in Oakland) isn’t so much a music search site as it is a streaming service in the style of Rhapsody, but it’s still a great way to find new artists.
