A Five Star Post
By Eddie Lopez. Thursday, 13. July 2006, 02:43:49
"Again with the iTunes..." you say. Look, it's simple- we're overly critical of those we love.
But today it's more of question than anything.. I'd like to solicit you for feedback on what you think of the iTunes rating system, or rating of music libraries in general.
This system seems to match basically what I've seen everyone else do.. including myself:
...the difference being that some folks will simply delete or uncheck the songs that would never be played again, but more or less, this is pretty standard.
Most of these same people (including myself) also seem to agree that their own ratings are never accurate. So, like I always do with my posts, I'd like to go back to "activity centered" ..which, in this case, is more "genre" or "mood" centered.
Five stars arrive as such based on the current mood you're in, or other songs you've listened to. Or the fact that this is a new album you've bought, so certainly, you think it's got some good licks on it yeah? But there's a myriad of contexts and conditions in which you'd consider a certain artist/song (like say Sade) a five star (like say... when you're entertaining the ladies), but not in other contexts (like say.. when you're hosting a BBQ). As a result, I've almost completely abandoned the arduous task (ok- I'm exaggerating.. it's really not bad) of rating any of my music.
Why?
I thought you'd never ask. Basically, I'd like to have more granularity in my ratings. Others have suggested a 10 star scale, but but really wouldn't solve any problem. What I think needs to be done is context aware rating. We've reserved our highest ratings for the uber, top notch, always appropriate, never wrong song....and quite frankly, there's just not any songs that I have that meet that. A five star song from my "mellow" playlist does not equal a five star song on my "running" playlist. So we bump them down to fours, or come up with some other kludge... even though when I'm mid stride after two miles, nothing says "five star" like "Bulls on Parade"
But iTunes *does* do that!
True. You can edit a smart playlist like such to get your highest rated by playlist or genre*:
...Here comes my question: Is this what *you* do? How do you do your music ratings? Do you think (like I do) that five star songs are really dependent on the context in which you're thinking? Or do you really have songs that would be your first up to bat regardless of the time, setting, mood, etc.. I have a few of those songs as well, but they are generally short lived- high rotation for short periods of time (like a new song that I burn out on quickly). These are fives, but get dropped to three or twos in a matter of weeks.
What thoughts do you have on library ratings that are useful?
*Ok, bad example... this would return an empty playlist because certain 80's bands would suck all other 80's songs down into the 1 star range. Guilt by association and all that. I'm looking at you Journey.
But today it's more of question than anything.. I'd like to solicit you for feedback on what you think of the iTunes rating system, or rating of music libraries in general.
This system seems to match basically what I've seen everyone else do.. including myself:
Five stars: OH MY GOD I LOVE THIS SONG PLAY IT OVER AND OVER!!!
Four stars: This song is really good. I could listen to it pretty regularly.
Three stars: This song is good.
Two stars: Ehhhh … skip.
One star: Never play this song again!
...the difference being that some folks will simply delete or uncheck the songs that would never be played again, but more or less, this is pretty standard.
Most of these same people (including myself) also seem to agree that their own ratings are never accurate. So, like I always do with my posts, I'd like to go back to "activity centered" ..which, in this case, is more "genre" or "mood" centered.
Five stars arrive as such based on the current mood you're in, or other songs you've listened to. Or the fact that this is a new album you've bought, so certainly, you think it's got some good licks on it yeah? But there's a myriad of contexts and conditions in which you'd consider a certain artist/song (like say Sade) a five star (like say... when you're entertaining the ladies), but not in other contexts (like say.. when you're hosting a BBQ). As a result, I've almost completely abandoned the arduous task (ok- I'm exaggerating.. it's really not bad) of rating any of my music.
Why?
I thought you'd never ask. Basically, I'd like to have more granularity in my ratings. Others have suggested a 10 star scale, but but really wouldn't solve any problem. What I think needs to be done is context aware rating. We've reserved our highest ratings for the uber, top notch, always appropriate, never wrong song....and quite frankly, there's just not any songs that I have that meet that. A five star song from my "mellow" playlist does not equal a five star song on my "running" playlist. So we bump them down to fours, or come up with some other kludge... even though when I'm mid stride after two miles, nothing says "five star" like "Bulls on Parade"
But iTunes *does* do that!
True. You can edit a smart playlist like such to get your highest rated by playlist or genre*:
...Here comes my question: Is this what *you* do? How do you do your music ratings? Do you think (like I do) that five star songs are really dependent on the context in which you're thinking? Or do you really have songs that would be your first up to bat regardless of the time, setting, mood, etc.. I have a few of those songs as well, but they are generally short lived- high rotation for short periods of time (like a new song that I burn out on quickly). These are fives, but get dropped to three or twos in a matter of weeks.
What thoughts do you have on library ratings that are useful?
*Ok, bad example... this would return an empty playlist because certain 80's bands would suck all other 80's songs down into the 1 star range. Guilt by association and all that. I'm looking at you Journey.
WIDGETIZE
dantesoft # 13. July 2006, 07:55
I immediately remembered the 'smart' office elevators, that return to wait in the lobby in the early hours, and go to await people as they leave their respective departments, e.g. accounting on the 5th floor at a quarter to 5, and IT on the top floor at 7PM.
How about a 'smart' rating system ? You rate each song, every time, seamlessly. Then the player makes automated deductions: on Saturday afternoons, owner likes to play Sade and others from /home/dancingqueen/smooth, while mornings owner plays from folders created around last year (maybe rock phase) and select online radio stations.
Of course, then you wouldn't dare to let the spouse touch the system, for fear Ally McBeal OST might get stuck in your
headplaylist.The system would have to implement concepts like mood (based on twenty-something hours/days), hit-song, classics, heavy-rotation; also trend of preferences, timetable (when program runs, when it plays), etc.
It could of course go awry: Would you like to hear me sing a song, Dave ?
Eddie_Lopez # 13. July 2006, 14:44
Ummm Yeah, I was thinking about how it could be autorated somehow, but it just seems too darn difficult to do.
Some (rough) thoughts :
normalize the stars using a couple of statistics like "number of times played." So a five star song that is played daily would keep it's five star, but you've rated song five stars that was only played a couple times in the past 6 months... and all within a week of purchase. So that star gets reduced to a four or something.
Adjust the stars based on the number of playlists that the song appears in.
Look at the genre or some other meta data and find out how many songs are rated highly in that genre and make an inference. Like if 80% of my five star songs are country music, then you might be able to assume *something* about that (I'm not sure what)
You could keep it simple by just allowing a "smart rating" ability that you can turn on that uses some combination of the above. So.. even though you download this album you really like, rate it five stars and play it 3 times a day... after two weeks it's never played again... and the ratings slowly drop for that.
Conversly, a two star song that gets pushed around into a couple playlists and a bit of extra rotation gets a bump in stars.
...but all of these thoughts still don't address the "mood" context at all. Just the "a five star today is not a five start tomorrow" aspect....or, as I like to call it: short attention span.
You're right about the things the system would have to consider, I just think it's probably too difficult. But we are all smart people. We create systems that work for us. We kludge and engineer... sometimes it's just a different approach to the problem. So that's why i thought I'd ask everyone what works best for them?
Stu_Pedasso # 14. July 2006, 11:55
Of course the problem is then you need to remember to do it after a certain amount of time. eBags sent me an email about a month after I bought urging me to review, which I thought was great. iTunes and other music services could easily have a prompt that comes up a month or two after a song is purchased asking you to rate it (and also having a "never ask me this again" checkbox for people who hate such things) then.
The thing that bothers me about all rating systems is that it brings up the ability of companies to collect more data on your habits. That's one of the reasons I won't use a Tivo box.
Eddie_Lopez # 14. July 2006, 12:11
Yeah, that's a pretty easy to implement approach, I like it.
Stu_Pedasso # 14. July 2006, 12:54
Yep, I've been around these parts for quite a while now. It's one of my daily reads. One of these days I'll probably even get smart and get an RSS reader.
Eddie_Lopez # 14. July 2006, 13:10