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This frightens me. I'm a big Rdio fan and they use Echo Nest as their backend. Has Spotify just found a way to secretly shut them down?

hadem 13y ago
This was my very first thought as well. I worry they will close it as well. Perhaps they will charge for to use the service in the future?
goatforce5 13y ago
Rdio's recently launched Stations feature (complete with "Powered by echonest" logo in the corner) is brilliant. It'll be a real shame if it goes away.
andrewcooke 13y ago
i use their api to construct my own playlists and am worried too...
aaronmoodie 13y ago
Or any other new music startup for that matter. I agree, this is a little disconcerting.
jggonz 13y ago
I've been working on a project where I'm building my own 'Echo Nest' type of API to feed it. I didn't want to rely on their API since I felt I could offer something better/different. With it, I have been slowly putting together a new music discovery site (http://www.musicplexer.com http://www.musicplexer.com) It's extremely incomplete at the time, but I'm still building the API the hard way: scraping, analyzing the data, connecting the different sources, and making sense of how it will all go together. The end result for Musicplexer will be something more than bop.fm, spotify, pandora, etc... I am planning some differentiating features that I don't want to discuss yet! :) Btw, it's built with Meteor/MongoDB & Mojolicious + EC2/DigitalOcean And... if enough people visit it, it'll probably die. ;)
- 6cxs2hd6 13y ago
  Does Echo Nest have any patents in the area of analysis? That would be my concern about this deal. Not just for you, but for the whole area. I hope this doesn't become more grist for our borked software patent system, wherein this deal mostly benefits only West Texas lawyers and their car dealers and realtors.
  - saaaaaam 13y ago
    http://www.patentgenius.com/assignee/TheEchoNestCorporation.html http://www.patentgenius.com/assignee/TheEchoNestCorporation....
    - dublinben 13y ago
      That's an unfortunate-sounding lists of patents.
    - touristtam 13y ago
      the description of the patent and what they exactly covers seems to be quite generic in the current context
    - jggonz 13y ago
      Wow, that's a generic list indeed. I may need to come up with some non-scientific way to tell which songs go well together... Maybe I'll have to take into account the current alignment of the stars.
nicholassmith 13y ago
Spotify has said they'll honour all standing business arrangements, so I imagine Rdio will have time to move to another provider or try and bring it in house.
- rhizome 13y ago
  Are any of those arrangements perpetual? Doubtful.
- saaaaaam 13y ago
  "We have a rolling one-year contract with you. It's just been renegotiated..."
circa 13y ago
I was thinking the same thing. I love Rdio and I cannot stand Spotify's UI or making everything a playlist.
hellbanTHIS 13y ago
That would suck, but I think what makes Rdio the best of the bunch is it's people-powered discovery system. I don't use the Stations feature and it would probably do just fine without it.

hadem 13y ago

This was my very first thought as well. I worry they will close it as well. Perhaps they will charge for to use the service in the future?

goatforce5 13y ago

Rdio's recently launched Stations feature (complete with "Powered by echonest" logo in the corner) is brilliant. It'll be a real shame if it goes away.

andrewcooke 13y ago

i use their api to construct my own playlists and am worried too...

aaronmoodie 13y ago

Or any other new music startup for that matter. I agree, this is a little disconcerting.

jggonz 13y ago

I've been working on a project where I'm building my own 'Echo Nest' type of API to feed it. I didn't want to rely on their API since I felt I could offer something better/different. With it, I have been slowly putting together a new music discovery site (http://www.musicplexer.com http://www.musicplexer.com) It's extremely incomplete at the time, but I'm still building the API the hard way: scraping, analyzing the data, connecting the different sources, and making sense of how it will all go together. The end result for Musicplexer will be something more than bop.fm, spotify, pandora, etc... I am planning some differentiating features that I don't want to discuss yet! :) Btw, it's built with Meteor/MongoDB & Mojolicious + EC2/DigitalOcean And... if enough people visit it, it'll probably die. ;)

6cxs2hd6 13y ago
Does Echo Nest have any patents in the area of analysis? That would be my concern about this deal. Not just for you, but for the whole area. I hope this doesn't become more grist for our borked software patent system, wherein this deal mostly benefits only West Texas lawyers and their car dealers and realtors.
- saaaaaam 13y ago
  http://www.patentgenius.com/assignee/TheEchoNestCorporation.html http://www.patentgenius.com/assignee/TheEchoNestCorporation....
  - dublinben 13y ago
    That's an unfortunate-sounding lists of patents.
  - touristtam 13y ago
    the description of the patent and what they exactly covers seems to be quite generic in the current context
  - jggonz 13y ago
    Wow, that's a generic list indeed. I may need to come up with some non-scientific way to tell which songs go well together... Maybe I'll have to take into account the current alignment of the stars.

nicholassmith 13y ago

Spotify has said they'll honour all standing business arrangements, so I imagine Rdio will have time to move to another provider or try and bring it in house.

rhizome 13y ago
Are any of those arrangements perpetual? Doubtful.
saaaaaam 13y ago
"We have a rolling one-year contract with you. It's just been renegotiated..."

circa 13y ago

I was thinking the same thing. I love Rdio and I cannot stand Spotify's UI or making everything a playlist.

hellbanTHIS 13y ago

That would suck, but I think what makes Rdio the best of the bunch is it's people-powered discovery system. I don't use the Stations feature and it would probably do just fine without it.