THE HYPE MACHINE

The Hype Machine is an MP3 blog aggregator created by Anthony Volodkin, it simply searches through music blogs from all over, gathering and bringing together an extensive database. This is all found on the one website and therefore giving you the ability to listen to a huge range of songs without any grief.


The Hype Machine was created in 2005 by Anthony Volodkin, a sophomore computer science major at Hunter College. The site was borne out of Volodkin's frustration with music magazines and radio stations. He said, "I discovered MP3 blogs like Stereogum and Music for Robots. I couldn't believe there were people spending their time writing about music, putting up tracks so you could hear them. And I thought, there has to be a way to bring this all together."


In 2005, Volodkin sent his site address to pioneers in the online music domain, including Lucas Gonze of Webjay, in order to gain feedback. Instead of sending a response, Gonze and others posted the link online. Volodkin observed, "[Hype Machine] got launched without ever being launched.


USING THE HYPE MACHINE

 The Hype Machine offers a few ways to find new music through the site, creating what I feel as a really good atmosphere of a website. There is ease of use and clear design.


• Latest: What's going on right now in the blogosphere.


This tends to be the freshest music, as soon as the music is posted in a blog and The Hype Machine have it set up to collect all information from them in pops up in this section for all to play.


• Popular: The most popular artists, searches and blogs on the internet right now.


As this website has an broad community spirit and works on users having an ability to love songs, this information collects the most popular songs at the time. Most loved songs from the charts within the past three days, or the previous week depending on your choice, keeping music as fresh as possible.


• Twitter: Interactive music chart of songs being posted on Twitter.


Popular songs based on users using Twitter. The Hype Machine monitors Twitter as people post ‘tweets’ linking directly to tracks found on The Hype Machine. This then corresponds to how popular the person is on Twitter, such as how many followers and friends they have (the most influential twitter users) and then a rating is given to the post itself therefore placing it appropriately on the Twitter Popular Chart.


• Radio: An eclectic non-stop radio stream of blogged tracks from the past week


This is actually a monthly showcase of the hottest music and bloggers from around the world, so says The Hype Machine. This is linked directly to Popular on the site and works really nicely as feature. It can be downloaded, or listened to straight from the site. The page gives information of both featured tracks and featured blogs.


• Spy: Snoop on what other people are listening to on our site.


Because of the sites nature to show what people love, this feature is really interesting, the second someone ‘Loves’ a track it appears on this constant flow of what other people are listening to. With the chart updated as often as each second you can hover over a track to not lose it.


• Zeitgeist: The best 50 artists, albums and songs of the year.


Zeitgeist, ‘The Spirit of the Age’. Exactly what is meant by Zeitgeist as The Hype Machine simply do a best of the year. Artists, albums and songs, but as The Hype Machine states forget magazine editors, marketing, this music listed has been chosen by the most passionate music fans and bloggers.


• Dashboard: A customisable view of your favourite tracks, artists, blogs and users.


The dashboard is where The Hype Machine becomes your own, this by creating your own log in. This records all your Loved Songs, as well Watchlist Songs, for your favourite blogs, people or searches, it also remembers your Listening History. I love going on The Hype Machine and just listening to my Loved songs, Love it.