YouTube Is The New iTunes

January 26, 2010 4:39 PM

YouTube has launched Disco. From TestTube - the GoogleLabs of YouTube - it's like Pandora lite with videos. Create and share playlists (linked playlist via TechCrunch), or just search for an artist and see what it comes up with.

This comes just over a month after Vevo, an effort from Sony partnered with YouTube to host official music videos, which has broadly expanded the range of music vids available.

Will users be swayed away from Muziic or Songza?

posted by battlebison (47 comments total)

Wow, the [more inside] sites just made me feel really old. "Will users be swayed from who and what now? And disco's back in?"
posted by filthy light thief at 4:45 PM on January 26, 2010 [8 favorites]

Thanks for sharing that.
posted by zzazazz at 4:50 PM on January 26, 2010

I should have included this in the post. And I have no clue if people even already use Muziic or Songza, I just wanted to provide some contrast. And... you know, I just didn't do a great job on this one. Sorry, Metafilter!
posted by battlebison at 4:51 PM on January 26, 2010 [1 favorite]

Well, I was wondering if there were any good ways of discovering good new music videos in these post-TV-showing-music-videos days, so cheers!
posted by Artw at 4:57 PM on January 26, 2010

I was hoping it would locate artists with similar videos the way Pandora finds similar songs.. it's fine the way it is now though. Back when i could afford MTV Hits I would have it playing on the tv all day even though I didn't care for the music. I like having music videos going on random. I like music videos but I have never met anyone else my age (25) who could name one they've seen in the last 10 years.
posted by amethysts at 4:58 PM on January 26, 2010

I'm a music fanatic, and when I read the new YT element was called Disco, I thought Discography. Apparently, it's short for Discovery.

Either way, I am not a fan of Vevo, because my search for Amon Tobin came back worse than empty. Seriously, Papa Roach? I don't think there's a spell check, suggestion mechanism, or tone-deaf fool who would give you Papa Roach if you asked for Amon Tobin.
posted by filthy light thief at 5:02 PM on January 26, 2010 [1 favorite]

Amon Tobin

Hey, it even turns up a decent playlist for Kid Koala!
posted by Artw at 5:05 PM on January 26, 2010

Enjoy listening to music without paying (stealing), everyone!
posted by mullingitover at 5:12 PM on January 26, 2010

Five months until... Kids, I remember when Disco actually had music videos instead of music artist bios and reality shows.
posted by BrotherCaine at 5:14 PM on January 26, 2010 [10 favorites]

filthy light thief: "Wow, the [more inside] sites just made me feel really old. "Will users be swayed from who and what now? And disco's back in?""

This tube of yours... it's in a computer?
posted by Joe Beese at 5:18 PM on January 26, 2010

It's bizarrely glitchy... I did a search for (ahem) myself, and oddly, a lot of song titles of mine from old records I made in the 90s come up, but there are no videos in existence for those tunes. Those titles, in the playlist that appears, are attached to YT videos of mine, but of completely different songs. How did those old song titles enter into the playlist, connected to different songs? Strange. And, in a couple of cases, there are old song titles of mine that are attached to videos by someone else entirely, no connection.

I'd see if the same thing happens to Lady gaga, but, well, I don't care.
posted by flapjax at midnite at 5:19 PM on January 26, 2010

searching for vomit got me all Dead Kennedys.
posted by boo_radley at 5:26 PM on January 26, 2010

thanks...neat!
posted by HuronBob at 5:32 PM on January 26, 2010

The default choices offered were Miley Cyrus, Beyonce, Rihanna, Linkin Park, Split Lip Rayfield, Michael Jackson, Britney Spears, Taylor Swift, Lady Gaga, Shakira and Mariah Carey, which made me feel old and nauseous and angry at young people, but then I searched for Tom Waits and that made me very happy.
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 5:43 PM on January 26, 2010 [1 favorite]

Searching for Metafilter turned up for some reason, Banda Pequeños Musical. But it also resulted with Van Halen, The Muppets, Glitter Band, which is entirely reasonable.
posted by tellurian at 5:54 PM on January 26, 2010

Good to know it works outside the U.S., as so many streaming music sites do not.
posted by Kraftmatic Adjustable Cheese at 5:58 PM on January 26, 2010 [1 favorite]

A search for MetaTalk results in Týr, a folk/metal Viking outfit - very nice result!
posted by tellurian at 5:58 PM on January 26, 2010

It only took google a year and a half to answer my question.
posted by signal at 6:18 PM on January 26, 2010

First of all, it's not really like Pandora. Pandora discovers what you like (supposedly) with occasional curveballs while YTD offers "similar artists" and that's it. OTOH, Pandora's catalog is weirdly thin. Like, I only ever 5 or 6 Jonathon Coulton songs and never any of the others. Why not?

Secondly, and this is the weirdest thing, the YTD videos are random. I think they must have an algorithm that detects songs people have already attached to arbitrary videos. So listening to, I dunno, Ray Charles or whatever the accompanying video is of a Mario Karts run or something. I guess they aren't deleting videos with copyrighted music anymore?
posted by DU at 6:35 PM on January 26, 2010

I once posted a link to the Týr song Hail to the Hammer in metatalk.
posted by bzbb at 6:35 PM on January 26, 2010

Booooooooooo-ring!
posted by mds35 at 6:40 PM on January 26, 2010

I may be able to cancel my iTunes account....

this is really a good thing... granted, many of the video's are home-made, put the music to pictures stuff.. but, hell, create a play list... set it to play, open a new tab...

I love the internets! :)
posted by HuronBob at 6:44 PM on January 26, 2010 [1 favorite]

I'm not sure I get how this works. Daft Punk turns up tons of examples (and a really good mix tape), but Fake Blood turns up nothing, yet, when I search for Fake Blood, I get tons of hits.
posted by empath at 6:45 PM on January 26, 2010

If Hype Machine ever comes up with a 'people who liked this also liked' feature, I'd be so happy.
posted by empath at 6:46 PM on January 26, 2010

I guess they aren't deleting videos with copyrighted music anymore?

Well, copyright holders can choose to (a) takedown, (b) leave up and do nothing, or (c) leave up and monetize. So we definitely don't take down all user videos with copyrighted music.
posted by wildcrdj at 6:54 PM on January 26, 2010

"We" - !

Burn him!
Covet him!
Praise him!
Salute!
posted by cavalier at 7:06 PM on January 26, 2010

I did a search for Buddy Holly and it turned up a bunch of people playing his music....and I'm not talking about covers by big name acts...I'm talking people with webcams. This is beyond useless for those types of searches. Meh, I'll never use it again.
posted by GavinR at 7:09 PM on January 26, 2010

Enjoy listening to music without paying (stealing), everyone!

How much money do you mail to Sony when you listen to the radio?
posted by regicide is good for you at 7:23 PM on January 26, 2010

Sleater-Kinney is one of the suggested bands. So, it gets might vote.
posted by oddman at 7:50 PM on January 26, 2010

I expected to feel old but the fact that evidently using the word "disco" is not considered the kiss of death anymore made me feel a tiny bit less decrepit.
posted by Morrigan at 8:36 PM on January 26, 2010

As is my wont, I searched for 'cub' - one of my usual tests for determining how good a music site or matching service is with semi-obscure non-recent music.

Checked Shirt. Hair. Moustache. Ukulele. Performing 'Pregnant'.

I don't know it that indicates a certain brilliance on Google/YouTube's part, or that their algorithm needs tweaking…
posted by Pinback at 8:52 PM on January 26, 2010

This is just distracting enough that I'm making no progress on my readings. Yay, procrastination!
posted by shinyshiny at 9:28 PM on January 26, 2010

Please let it eventually work on my Apple TV. Or make a Boxee client. Or at least eventually for my 360 or my Wii. Just some way--any way--I can pump it into my living room, control it from my couch, and not have to think about my computer. Or wires. Pandoraesque videos playing in the background while I poot around the house? Oh, please. Please please please please please!
posted by sourwookie at 10:24 PM on January 26, 2010

Hell, since Apple (TV and phone) and Nintendo (and where the hell is that 360 browser?) aren't playing nice with Flash--please bring on the HTML 5!
posted by sourwookie at 10:27 PM on January 26, 2010

That's weird... if you try it on IE it dumps you into a more standard Youtube search.
posted by Artw at 10:28 PM on January 26, 2010

That's weird... if you try it on IE it dumps you into a more standard Youtube search.

That happens when I hit the "enter" key in the field, but not if I click on the "Disco" button.
posted by girlhacker at 11:10 PM on January 26, 2010

I was wondering if there were any good ways of discovering good new music videos in these post-TV-showing-music-videos days

It only took google a year and a half to answer my question.

For those who prefer a little less automatic-turkery, I'd still recommend antville (their monthly faves & yearly awards, etc. are linked here), promonews, pitchfork.tv, if:mv and video militia as the steadiest sources for fresh online music video goodness.
posted by progosk at 11:33 PM on January 26, 2010

automatic-turkery

erm, that's not right is it? maybe new-fangled-algorhythmery is closer? non-human-rankery? well, you get the idea.
posted by progosk at 11:38 PM on January 26, 2010

I had interesting results searching for obscure bands, and getting other obscure bands worth noticing as results. However, I also got a lot of buffering delays, too. Not exactly what one wants in their streaming online music service.
posted by markkraft at 2:08 AM on January 27, 2010

Sourwookie: Don't know if it's usable on a Wii or AppleTV yet, but Youtube is available in HTML5 nowadays, still experimental of course.
posted by Marcc at 4:53 AM on January 27, 2010

I love this! I punched in Alice Peacock and it suggested Joan Osborne, Sheryl Crow and Sophie B Hawkins. It seems to be pretty accurate even with obscure artists.
posted by Solomon at 5:48 AM on January 27, 2010

This is great, and actually works while I am at work so I have something fun to play with today. On my break. Or at lunch.
posted by genefinder at 5:57 AM on January 27, 2010

It passed the Alva Noto test. And unlike Pandora, it's actually controllable.
posted by Foosnark at 6:56 AM on January 27, 2010

I suppose this was only a matter of time. I share an office with someone who works for FlyFi, who (as far as I know) invented the idea of using Youtube as radio. They had a great social recommendation engine, but no way to pay for licensing or digital music to play with it. But wait! Youtube has a billion songs already...

Songza uses the Flyfi recommendation engine as well.
posted by rusty at 7:13 AM on January 27, 2010

Well, it introduced me to a version of Richard Thompson playing "Oops! I did it again", so I'm pretty sold.
posted by svenx at 7:20 AM on January 27, 2010 [1 favorite]

I searched for Why? and it returned a playlist full of Michael Jackson, Prince, Rick James, and Madonna.

Needs a little work.
posted by owtytrof at 8:51 AM on January 27, 2010

Will users be swayed away from Muziic or Songza?

Songza has been useless for quite a while now. It only searched imeem, hypem, and YouTube, and now imeem is gone. You're better off going straight to YT or Hype Machine.

YT Disco looks a *lot* more like Muziic, meaning they likely "borrowed" some of the inspiration there. I think I prefer Muziic, though it doesn't have the recommendation engine of Disco (which seems pretty worthless to me so far).

I don't like the way Disco automatically selects your playlist. Hassle. Muziic is better there. The ability to save YT playlists, however, is a big bonus for Disco.

Personally, I'm amazed that a video-sharing site is still the best place online to link to music. I guess I shouldn't be.

I'm not sure I get how this works. Daft Punk turns up tons of examples (and a really good mix tape), but Fake Blood turns up nothing, yet, when I search for Fake Blood, I get tons of hits.

I would guess it's because of copyright permissions and/or their index of artists. Similarly, Fungi Girls don't come up as a band on YT Disco, but there are a couple of live videos available.

Actually, no, Fake Blood is listed as a band in Disco. Looks like a bug there.
posted by mrgrimm at 9:25 AM on January 27, 2010