The Hype Machine is a music blog search engine that has become popular during the past few years. Launching in 2007, the HypeM team now tracks a "set of kickass music blogs and then presents what they discuss for easy analysis, consumption and discovery. This way, your odds of stumbling into awesome music or awesome blogs are high." Click here to see the full list of blogs that are currently tracked by HypeM.
Since beginning to use HypeM, I have seen it go from a simple search engine to a graphics-enhanced engine with many other features such as Twitter feeds as well as profiles allowing you to save searches and follow friends. Any music aficionado should be familiar with this site as it is a wealth of knowledge about what is new. Particularly, the Hype Machine is great for finding up-and-coming music before it hits the mainstream and remixes unavailable in other locations such as iTunes. I also use HypeM to find interesting new music blogs to read and to learn about my favorite artists. Take a look at the demonstration video below to see how to use the most important features of the site then read through the analysis and comparison sections to see how HypeM stacks up to its competition. Hope you enjoy!
Basic Feature Description:
Okay, so I know you're dying to ge to the demonstration video, but first I want to present a quick preview. Here is the list of features that HypeM provides:
Latest: What's going on right now in the blogosphere.
Popular: The most popular artists, searches and blogs on the internet right now.
Twitter: Interactive music chart of songs being posted on Twitter.
Radio: An eclectic non-stop radio stream of blogged tracks from the past week
Spy: Snoop on what other people are listening to on our site.
Zeitgeist: The best 50 artists, albums and songs of the year.
Dashboard: A customizable view of your favorite tracks, artists, blogs and users.
If you create a user account, you can access all of these features. Without an account, you can still search and browse, but can not utilize the dashboard. Who wouldn't create an account and miss out on all those features? In case you need some more convincing, take a peek at how easy it is to use here then watch the demonstration video below.
Demonstration:
A written description of how to use the Machine can be found here.
How Does it Work?
The best method to describing this is in the words of HypeM itself:
The Hype Machine tracks a variety of MP3 blogs. If a post contains MP3 links, it adds those links to its database and displays them on the front page.
Some of the frequently accessed tracks are cached by the Hype Machine server, much like Google Search caches web pages, to reduce load on the bloggers' servers and protect their bandwidth.
Those tracks are NOT available for download, but you can preview them via the play buttons that are next to each track.
The blog that posted a particular track is identified under every track by name so you can read more about why they posted it. If you enjoyed a track someone posted, stop by and let them know!
You can purchase CDs and individual tracks by using the "amazon" and "itunes" links that appear next to most tracks. Each purchase you make supports both the artists and the Hype Machine. Please buy and enjoy.
Site Statistics & Demographics:
To more accurately answer the question of who uses HypeM there is no need to look any further than HypeM's site itself. Turns out the HypeM team is very conscious of who is using their site (no doubt to help with advertising). You can view the full demographic info here. Unfortunately, I am not able to link to any of the graphs so you will actually have to click the link.
In short, the HypeM attracts
over 1.0 million monthly people, of which 398K (39%) are in the U.S. The site attracts a more educated, slightly male slanted, young adult audience. The HypeM audience also discovers new music mostly through the web, blogs, and discussions with friends. Lastly, HypeM users spend most of their music budget on concert tickets and digital music.
*Note: The trends graphs in the comparison section do not match HypeM's internal calculations likely due to the international presence on HypeM not currently covered by Google Trends.
Should I use the HypeM?
Are you a DJ, musician, or blogger? If so, you fall in to one of the three categories of users that represent 64% of HypeM users. I can speak as a DJ and musician that HypeM is a fantastic site to use for music discovery. Particularly for DJs, it is a great place to stay a step in front of the competition on digging for new and unheard music and remixes. Even if you are just someone who loves music and enjoys finding new things, HypeM is for you.
So, how does one analyze such a multi-faceted search engine as HypeM? Let's examine HypeM over the different metrics discussed in class.
Query Analysis
Rating: D
Let's look at some common operators:
Operator
Accepted by site?
AND
No
OR
No
NOT
No
INURL
No
Looks like none of the typical search engine operators function on this site, HypeM is the simplest form of text-based
search. I have contacted HypeM's technical team in regards to this functionality and hope to hear about whether they
plan to add it in the future.
What about other special ways of searching? - Answer is there are none. However, when viewing any page that is dependent on time period (for example, popular over the past week) one can type in to the menu bar a different time interval such as month, year, etc… An example of how to do this is shown in the demonstration video. I wish they would provide a better way of selecting the time period you're interested in.
Query Automation - Another down side to HypeM is that the search engine does not accept any spelling deviations from what you are looking for. Results often come back quickly without anything found, after a few seconds of scratching your head you realize that you spelled 'brother' as 'bother' and then find a few hundred results. This is the first thing HypeM should work to fix and is a constant nuisance.
Indexed Information - If HypeM did not index search information to help speed up searches, I fear that the site would be impossible to use. Over the past couple of years, HypeM has implemented a much more graphical interface and loading new pages often prompts a lot of flashy effects like pages flying from right to left. Although nice to look at, one can imagine how this would slow things down. Typically, a common artist, blog, etc… will be pretty quick to look up but anything more specific takes some more time. This exemplifies the effect of indexing at HypeM.
Recall and Precision
Rating: A
Granted that HypeM's search is pretty simple, keep in mind that it can be hard to specify a search query to return exact results if your have a very specific criteria in mind. However, we can still test the recall and precision for simpler queries:
Search: I tested with the query "Chromeo Night by night." This is Chromeo's new single that was recently released.
Recall and Precision:
Precision = Retrieved and Relevant / (Retrieved + Not Relevant) = 79/79 = 1
As I mentioned at the beginning of this section, since the search engine itself is super simple, HypeM only accepts searches that it can retrieve very easily (try anything not-so-simple and it will return "no results found." Trust me, I tried.). Thus, the recall and precision values are very high. The conclusion is that although HypeM is not a complex search engine, HypeM does an excellent job of finding what you want bolstered by the fact that its application (music blog searching) is quite specific.
The only reason the rating for this section is not A+, as you would expect with such fantastic numbers, is because of the query limitations on the site that pretty much set it up to perform so well.
Note: I repeated this analysis searching for one of my favorite blogs called "Hot Biscuits" and found the calculations of Recall and Precision to be the same. So, whether you want to find a blog, artist, or song HypeM is equally accurate.
Quality of Coverage:
Rating: A
HypeM covers all the top music blogs out there on the internet in their database, as well as a lot of unknown gems. They are always on the search for new locations for music and even allow blogs to apply to be added. However, there are some types of sites HypeM will not add. According to their site, these usually include:
Official label blogs (though we love it when bloggers link to official blog posts with new releases)
DJ blogs that feature their own mixes (they are all awesome, right?)
Blogs that are run by promoters of parties, DJs or artists
Web music startup company blogs
Party photo blogs (*cough* not at all a direct mention to The Cobra Snake *cough*)
Basically, HypeM does not want to allow itself to be a tool for promotion (MySpace) and the developers want to maintain some control over the content. In the end, they wish to stay true to the blog search idea that they have been pursuing since launch. This means that HypeM is more about the conversation than the physical and digital media, which I would like to point out is what makes it fantastic and unique. There is no greed motivation.
This philosophy and dedication to getting the right content means that the Hype Machine is an unmatched tool in covering the type of content that it intends to find. They may only include a very precise type of content, but that is not a negative in this case.
Transparency
Rating: A+
When it comes to transparency, HypeM is about as clear as can be. As I mentioned above, you can find the complete list of blogs that HypeM searches here. If you want to know about how they choose blogs/how to get your blog listed then check out this page.
Frequency of Update
Rating: A
So, I'm not really sure of the exact frequency of update for the HypeM. However, the nature of their site and the fact that there is constantly music being added (believe me, I've spent entire days and nights on the site watching new music come in) leads to the conclusion that they are updating at the least a few times every hour. My guess is that their feelers are constantly looking for new blog posts with MP3 links, so their updates may come in nearly real-time. After all, relative to most search engines, HypeM is looking through vastly fewer websites.
Responsiveness
Rating: B+
In comparison to large search engines like Google and Yahoo, HypeM is rather slow at searching and even freezes up sometimes while running a query. Relative to more comparable search engines, HypeM is somewhere in the middle of the pack. For example, Pandora is generally pretty slow since their database is massive, whereas Captain Crawl tends to be pretty quick.
Content
Rating: A+
The content is no question the selling point of this search engine. No one else out there does music blog search in an attractive, effective, and user-oriented manner like HypeM. This topic is discussed throughout my search engine analysis, so I'll leave it at that single point here.
Quality of the Experience
Rating: A
As mentioned above, over the past two years HypeM has been working to make the site more user-friendly by adding features and a graphical interface. I really enjoy having the ability to favorite other users, blogs, and songs to track what they are listening to. It is also pretty cool to see pages flying right to left every time I search since aesthetics are incredibly important to user retention.
Certain sites have a draw that you can not explain. This draw brings you back day after day. We all know the power of Facebook, MySpace, and CTools (just kidding). HypeM definitely has this attractiveness and is why it deserve an A rating for user experience.
Analysis Conclusions
HypeM has some work to do in technical areas dealing with their search engine itself, but overall there is no denying how well this site has been designed and the dedication of the development team. The Hype Machine is still a relatively unknown gem in the vastness of the internet, and maybe that is how it should stay; dedicated to music aficionados all over the world and not tainted like MySpace and Facebook have become.
So who else is competing with HypeM? There are hundreds (probably thousands) of music search engines on the web. However, there are a few different types of these search engines based on what they do. For example, HypeM is a music blog search, Pandora is an online music player as well as search engine, and Google Discover Music is a search engine that links to other websites for streaming data.
I started this analysis by taking a look at a long list of music search engines. Note that I did not include video search engines like YouTube and Blinkx because the use of a video search is for a different purpose than a text/streaming music based search. Video search is for, well, finding videos. Text/Streaming search is for music discovery in the form of reading about new music and listening to it.
Each of the search engines mentioned above are slightly different from one another. Even sites that use the same principal of streaming online radio like Pandora, Last.FM, and Jango all have different methods of search and options for listening. These differences make it difficult to compare one music search engine to another because in reality no two are equal. For the purpose of this analysis, I wanted to pick one of the most popular music search engines as well as two music blog search engines that are similar to HypeM to prepare a comparison.
To discover which search engines were the most popular, I utilized Google Trends to see which were being used by the most users. Check out the graphs below that summarize what I found:
Blog Search Engines
Text/Streaming Search Engines
Although not pictured in the graphs because of its huge relative size, Pandora is the market leader with over 300K unique daily visitors. IMEEM is in second place, but has seen a significantly declining number of visitors over the past year. Also, Last.FM, Rhapsody, and Jango pull in between 30-70K.
Blog search engines (the first graph) are not nearly as popular as the online streaming sites. HypeM and Elbo.ws pull in about 5% of the traffic that Pandora does on a daily basis. However, there is a market for these blog search engines as they have served a specific niche of the market; the music enthusiast. Another consideration is that blog search engines may be sites that people have a less frequent need for. For example, I use HypeM to discover new music blogs as well as new music. I check in only about once per week to find new music and see what's new on the blogs I have favorited. If I want to read the specific blog posts (not just see the tunes they've posted), I will go directly to that website. This factor probably brings down the stream of daily visitors and can understate the true popularity of such sites.
The conclusion I came to after looking at the popularity of all these sites is that an analysis of HypeM would not be accurate if compared only to sites likes Pandora.com or Last.fm. The best way to compare HypeM to its competition is to pick a mix of sites that illustrate the different features of HypeM. Thus, I chose to take a closer look at Pandora as it is the leader in streaming music search as well as Captain Crawl and Elbo.ws because they are the most direct competitors to HypeM.
Pandora
Overall Rating: A
Pandora is a spinoff of the Music Genome Project that has been working since 2000 to create the largest database of music ever created. The project categorizes tunes on over 400 categories and has had a team of 50 working full time to put together what makes Pandora today. Pandora is an online-streaming search engine for music that intends to help people discover new songs and artists that are similar to the user's tastes. Now with a huge following, Pandora allows users to customize "radio" stations based on the music they like, then their database takes over, playing other songs that match what you originally put in. Pandora also allows users to access the database of the Music Genome Project in order to learn about the music.
Comparisons
Allows the search of music, but only searches the Pandora database
Pandora does not include remixes, underground music, or the newest of the new because it takes time to be added to their database
Users can create a login identity, save favorite music to their profile, track friends, and view information about that music as well as search similar artists and songs
There is both a free and pay service; pay service removes advertisements
Pandora has a mobile application that lets users listen and explore from their handheld devices
New advertisements that interrupt the music are particularly annoying
How it stacks up
In comparison to HypeM, Pandora is a very different beast. Pandora's philosophy is to categorize as much music as possible and help the average person find new things they may like based on current preferences. HypeM is geared towards a niche audience of music discoverers who want to hear what's on the cutting edge and brag about it to their friends. The streaming features and sheer size of the Pandora user base is overwhelming when compared to HypeM. However, most of the media that users find on HypeM will not be found on Pandora and vice versa.
Captain Crawl
Overall Rating: B-
Captain Crawl claims to be a:
Very nice search engine, specialized in indexing music related blogs and pages. Try it and discover new music, new bands, new genres, and new blogs.
This site is a very basic music blog search engine that displays results succinctly from many sources. A search in Captain Crawl outputs a page that looks like this:
In order to compare to HypeM, let's simply look at the feature capabilities of the two sites. Both of these search engines are blog-oriented; however, the two search engines differ in content philosophies with Captain Crawl including more sites in its database. These sites are not all music blogs, as is discussed below.
Comparisons
Searches many more music blogs as well as bit torrents
Database of blogs not as strictly controlled as HypeM, allowing text-based blogs that are not just about music. For example, party blogs, nightlife blogs, etc…
No online streaming or method to preview music
No ability to create a profile or any of the favorite and track features of HypeM, lacking any additional features to searching
Very limited information available about the search engine itself
Annoying interactive ads get in the way of browsing
How it stacks up
Captain Crawl is a rather annoying search engine to use with a weak user interface and has limited functionality in comparison to HypeM. Overall, search results are similar and many of the blogs are shared between the two websites. However, Captain Crawl also contains a collection of websites that HypeM would not consider adding to their search index.
Elbo.ws
Overall Rating: A-
Elbows collects music blog posts with the purpose of providing insight in to what's going on in the music blog scene. Through this insight, Elbows wants users to be able to discover new artists and to support the blogs that are included on the site. Like Captain Crawl, Elbows does not focus precisely on the discovery of music by ear like HypeM, but rather is about discovery of music through reading blogs. Hence, Elbows does not have streaming capability but does provide snippets of blog posts. Additionally, when searching, expect to see results based on what is included in the blog posts themselves rather than the mp3s linked in the posts.
Comparisons
Streaming capability like HypeM
Blog snippets so that users can get a taste before visiting the blogs themselves
No online streaming or method to preview music
Database of blogs not as strictly controlled as HypeM, allowing text-based blogs that are not just about music. For example, party blogs, nightlife blogs, etc…
Links to videos in addition to music
Tracks popular music, videos, blog posts, etc…
How it stacks up
Elbows is definitely a superior search engine to Captain Crawl and it searches much in the same way. Focusing on the blog posts themselves rather than the music, linking to tracks is not required to be included in the Elbows index. Also, there is no streaming capability directly built in to the site so users must depend on the blog posts themselves for this. It is clear that the vision that created Elbows is different than that of HypeM, but after exploring this competitor I have grown to see the advantage to it when I want to read about music. HypeM is superior in discovering new tracks, but Elbows allows users to school up on what is being posted around the internet much easier.
Overall Conclusions
After looking at all the other search engines mentioned above, it became clear that HypeM is a very unique site. Although it includes features from Pandora, Last.FM, Captain Crawl, and Elbows, HypeM has an overall unique feature set. Maybe the best way to describe the Machine is to say that it is part social network and part search engine, leaning heavily towards the social network aspect. The search engine itself is not as advanced as most of the competitors, but the overall feature set is well thought out and better developed than almost all of the competition.
