An intriguing aspect of how Google presents their new music search in their blog is the premise that a search engine for music should include discovery: “a search engine should also be able to help you discover music you’ll like.” A crucial limitation of standard, keyword-based search is that people discover based on more nuanced, personal criteria. Google compensates by partnering with Pandora, imeem, and Rhapsody to link to their discovery services. (Ironically, as Rory Cellan-Jones puts it on BBC dot.life, this new service may also endanger the “fragile business models” of music services like Spotify.)

Interestingly, while the Wall Street Journal described Yahoo as quick to highlight “how it also allows users to stream some songs from its search results page through a partnership with Rhapsody,” the Yahoo blog post doesn’t mention discovery.

At Jinni, we believe search for any type of entertainment should incorporate a chance to discover new content. We aim to create this experience seamlessly via intelligent search that comprises mood and personal tastes in plot, style, and more, as well as familiar keywords like titles and people. It’s the difference between narrow search by “what you’re looking for” and search by “what you like.”

Technorati Tags: Google music search, MySpace, Pandora, imeem, Rhapsody, iLike, Yahoo

Popularity: 3% [?]

We’re honored to have President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad among Jinni’s early adopters. He’s been busy rating movies - based on which Jinni displays his Movie Personality Sketch. He’s also following some users whose taste in movies interests him, and several others are following him. Check out his example of how to make the most of Jinni. *

Movie Ratings

Movie Personality Sketch:

Following:
Follow people inviting them to Jinni, adding them from your Neighbors (people with compatible taste) , or via the link to their public user page.

Followers:
These are people who choose to follow your actions on Jinni.

* Okay, it’s true, we just dressed up as Ahmadinejad for Halloween  in order to add to the chaos and mayhem and maybe cause an international incident.

Technorati Tags: ahmadinejad, halloween

Popularity: 5% [?]

After Microsoft announced deals last week with Twitter and Facebook to include real-time feeds from both social sites in Bing’s results, Wired published an article “The Future is Social, Not Search, Facebook COO Says.” COO Sheryl Sandberg is quoted at the Web 2.0 Summit in San Francisco: “We believe in the wisdom of friends.”

Interestingly, the example Sandberg gave to support her point came from the world of movies. When trying to decide whether Where the Wild Things Are would be too scary for her children, she posted the question on Facebook and got the answers she was looking for.

Movies are a social product that we consume in a subjective, experiential way – and so a great example of the limits of dry-fact, one-size-fits-all search. (Which by the way seems to me the best solution for some other types of questions, if one that still has plenty of room to improve.)

Rather than social replacing search, I see social entering search as part of a more general trend toward personalization. Incorporating your social circle into your online discovery or decision process is just one aspect of the kind of personalization that’s necessary to help people make sense of all the noise and choice on the web.

Rob Walker’s latest piece in Consumed, “Few Releases,” takes a look at redbox as a business that allies itself with the principle that consumers are overwhelmed by too many options (Paradox of Choice) and appeals in part by offering few. As Walker notes, redbox’s strongest point is spontaneous, rock-bottom-cost rental. But this is strengthened by a limited selection that focuses on recent releases. “You know, I missed that in the theater, why don’t I pick that up?” is how Mitch Lowe, president of redbox, describes the painless, near-instantaneous selection process.

The idea of ignoring everything but recent blockbusters may work for redbox. But it probably doesn’t look like a full solution to the overwhelming choice in movies for anyone who cares about culture, movies, or who has ever seen a blockbuster they disliked or watched a lesser-known movie they enjoyed.

Instead of just limiting the options, better discovery tools - incorporating personal and social elements – can give each person a customized set of options, limited by mood and taste rather than just by what’s popular.

At Jinni, we’ve been intrigued to note that people often describe our search results, which are as yet a one-size-fits-all proposition, as “recommendations.” I think this is because Jinni supports a personal approach that’s unfamiliar for users of standard search engines. You tell Jinni you’re in the mood for something “funny” or “thought-provoking” – and you get answers. This isn’t social, it’s a machine, though it is based on automated Natural Language analysis of many thousands of user reviews. Maybe search as a kind of active recommendation-gathering is the personalized future.

Technorati Tags: redbox, Bing, Facebook, Twitter

Popularity: 2% [?]

Amelia – the story of Amelia Earhart, the legendary American pilot – is opening this week. Why do we still find her story so appealing today, more than 70 years after her disappearance over the Pacific Ocean?

I think it’s because she dared to do what was considered impossible and even outrageous for women at that time. Even today female pilots are quite uncommon. This made me wonder – what if we combine our “strong female role” gene on Jinni with other genes that are usually related to films about men? The results might surprise you.

Further food for thought: Is Monika Bartyzel right to say on Cinematical that “adding more women to mix” has provoked a backlash?

10. Strong Female Role, Cowboys (click to see results on Jinni)

“Cowboy” usually brings to mind a tough, rugged man wearing a pair of jeans and a wide-brim hat. The images that appear when you look up “strong female role, cowboys” are not very different: the jeans are still there, so are the hat and the guns - only the wearer is a woman.

We get stories about prostitutes who became cowgirls to make better lives (Bad Girls, 1994), a musical about legendary female sharpshooter Calamity Jane (1953) and even a disturbing family drama on a cattle ranch (The Missing, 2003).

9. Strong Female Role, Martial Arts

Who is the greatest martial arts master in cinema? Bruce Lee? Jackie Chan? Perhaps Jet Li?

Your answer is almost certainly a man. But the last decade or so has seen a revolution in the area of women and martial arts. The pioneer was probably Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000), with two heroines who fought as well as the men, sometimes even better.

This success inspired other great women-oriented martial arts films like Hero (2002) and House of Flying Daggers (2004) and influenced American films like Kill Bill and Tomb Raider.

And between you and me, watching a woman fight in the graceful style of martial arts can be much more entertaining than watching a man do the same.

8. Strong Female Role, Soldier

Throughout most of the history of Western civilization, women were not allowed to become soldiers and fight for their country or personal beliefs.

In the last century this has begun to change, as more and more countries allow women to serve, even as combat soldiers.

But this is apparently still rare enough in the public consciousness to give few results for “strong female soldier.” We get true stories about female resistance warriors in WWII (Les Femmes de l’Ombre, 2008), a fish-out-of-water comedy about a spoiled Jewish princess joining the army (Private Benjamin, 1980) and an interesting Israeli film that portrays what happens to young women on the verge of adulthood in a country where military service is obligatory (Close to Home, 2005).

7. Strong Female Role, Tough Heroes

The basic results for Tough Heroes are full of testosterone with male heroes like Jason Bourne, Rambo, Rocky and some old Clint Eastwood types. Not a single woman in sight.

But does that mean there are no tough female heroes? On the contrary! Adding the “strong female role” gene brings us great tough female characters like The Bride from Kill Bill, Nikita, and Ripley’s character from the Alien series. (And check this article in io9 on “Is Science Fiction Feminized or Is It Sexist?“)

Apparently, women can kick ass just as well as man!

6. Strong Female Role, Boxing

Boxing may be one of the most male-dominated sports. Most of us can name several famous male boxing champions, but how many of us can think of a female one?

Perhaps it’s the brutality of the sport. Nonetheless it seems that for filmmakers, female boxers are quite fascinating. “Strong female role, boxing” returns two highly acclaimed movies: the major Oscar winner Million Dollar Baby (2004) and Girlfight (2000). There are also several other lesser-known movies, like Shadow Boxers (1999) and Against the Ropes (2004), in which the usually delicate Meg Ryan portrays the first female boxing manager.

5. Strong Female Role, Rough

Theoretically, a mood shouldn’t relate to gender. But theory aside, when you look at the first few pages of results for “rough” (gritty, visceral) you mostly find men.

Of course, that doesn’t mean there are no rough movies featuring women. The combination of genes reveals many options for rough movie-lovers: from emotional, heartfelt drama like Maria Full of Grace (2004) to action-packed crime capers (Bonnie and Clyde, 1967) to contemplative social drama like North Country (2005).

4. Strong Female Role, Soccer

Cinema-wise, movies about female soccer players are even rarer than movies about female boxers. The combined genes produce three quite different results.

Bend It Like Beckham (2002), a touching, coming-of-age story about a talented female player whose immigrant parents want her to follow traditional Indian mores; Gracie (2007), a tear-jerker based on the real-life story of actress Elisabeth Shue, who apparently paved the way for girls to play high school soccer in the 70s despite strong objections from her father; and the teenage comedy of errors She’s the Man (2006), in which a girl switches roles with her brother to be accepted to her school’s soccer team.

3. Strong Female Role, Gangsters

Gangsters is another very male-oriented theme. All those beloved and highly-acclaimed mob films like The Godfather (1972) and Goodfellas (1990) have huge casts composed mainly of men. Even if there is a woman now and then, she is usually a prostitute or someone’s sister/mother, and rarely important as a strong character in her own right.

Accordingly, the search for these two genes results mainly in films where women deal with the mob from the outside: either as journalists like Veronica Guerin (2003) or as innocent victims who accidentally tangle with gangsters as in Run Lola Run (1998) or Sister Act (1992).

A movie about a female gangster is yet to come – perhaps like in real life…?

2. Strong Female Role, Lone Wolves

Quentin Tarantino again shines here with both of his Kill Bill features, but there are other female characters who’ve acted alone for justice, vengeance or just plain action.

There’s Lady Snowblood (1973) about a female assassin avenging her family’s death, The Brave One (2007) starring Jodie Foster as a victim-turned-vigilante, and Gang of Roses (2003), where a gang of female criminals take the Old West by storm.

In all of these cases, women take their fates into their own hands, without need of any man’s assistance.

1. Strong Female Role, Sexism

Sexism is the belief or attitude that one gender or sex is inferior to, less competent, or less valuable than the other. Of course, this term usually portrays men’s attitude toward women.

Therefore, it is not a surprise to find many movies that deal with the issue from the perspective of a strong female heroine. We get stories of women who deal with sexism as they try to get jobs, fulfill their dreams, contribute to society and help break the glass ceiling.

Popularity: 4% [?]

“The Song Decoders,” a very intriguing article by Rob Walker in the New York Times (with some smart reactions based on personal experience listed on his Murketing blog, including William Weir and Steve Sailer), looks at Pandora via an interview with founder Tim Westergren.

One question the article raises is how Pandora, with a “puny” library of only 700,000 songs, competes with services like Slacker and Spotify. I think the answer is Pandora’s powerful recommendation system: the subject of the article and a more appealing offer (at least for many listeners, in many contexts) than additional songs, in order to make sense of those very large libraries we now have access to.

Movies are moving in the same direction, as Chris Albrecht pointed out in a very interesting piece in last week’s NewTeeVee. Chris poses the question: between Amazon, Blockbuster, CinemaNow, and others, how do you choose which VOD service to use? As I commented, we think that people will use an outside service to select what they feel like watching from the world of movie options, then opt for a VOD service based on price and quality. Other comments echoed the “polygamous” approach to choosing a service.

“The Song Decoders” mentions what we hide as an example of the social influence on cultural consumption: “Last.fm, for example, publishes a chart listing the songs that its users most frequently delete from their public listening-stream data. The guilty pleasure Top 10 is dominated by the most radio-ready pop artists — Katy Perry’s “I Kissed a Girl,” several tracks by Lady Gaga.” Actually this seems like an illustration of the opposite: the limits of social influence, since people enjoy some music despite explicit social pressure not to do so. Either way it’s quite a fascinating phenomenon and I wonder if we’ll see a similar one with movies and shows on Jinni in future.

Technorati Tags: Pandora, music genome, movie genome

Popularity: 2% [?]