TuneCircle Inc. today announced the launch of the TuneCircle Music Library Community at http://www.tunecircle.com . TuneCircle’s service allows users to publish information about their music library, meet like-minded music fans, and get music recommendations based on the music on their computers.
Like things often do, TuneCircle started with two drunk guys at a party.
During a Christmas party in December 2003, Robert von Goeben and Jon Aizen complained about being stuck in musical ruts. Robert, an ex-Geffen exec, was tired of 70’s rock. Jon, a technologist for Archive.org, was sick of 90’s jam-bands. They wanted to browse other people’s music libraries to meet and get recommendations from like-minded fans. But current music services make community tasks difficult because they don’t focus on the music you actually own. So they had another beer, and created TuneCircle.
TuneCircle is a powerful service that provides users with a simple way to post their music libraries online. The TuneCircle Library Scanner securely scans the music on a user’s computer, and posts information about their music (artist names, albums and song titles) to a TuneCircle Library. But the real power comes when TuneCircle compares a user’s library to that of every other user, and finds people and music the user might like.
“The ONLY good music recommendations come from real people,” says Robert von Goeben, CEO of TuneCircle in the press release. “With TuneCircle, users have a simple way to publish their music libraries, and find new music through people who like the same music.”
Other music services do a lousy job at providing music recommendations and building community. Most are impersonal and rely on computer-generated “black box” recommendations. TuneCircle analyzes a user’s music library, automatically connects them to users with similar artists, and suggests music that similar people have that the user does not own. The site also provides sound sample and purchase links to Apple’s iTunes and Amazon.com.
TuneCircle does not enable file sharing and doesn’t host music files, just the “meta-tag” information about music (artist, album, song title, etc.). “Legal downloads are becoming widely available,” says von Goeben. “The problem is knowing what the hell to buy.”
TuneCircle is free for all users, and available on the web at http://www.tunecircle.com .