Thinking about heading to South by Southwest Interactive next March? There’s a host of intriguing panel proposals in the music, technology and culture space. Below is a round-up of the zed equals zee faves. Click on the titles for more info and to vote.
Love, Music & APIs
(Dave Haynes, SoundCloud and Paul Lamere, The Echo Nest)
Regular readers know that zed equals zee hearts Music Hack Days. Learn more about why developing an ecosystem around putting music in the hands of developers is good for companies, for music and for fans.
Finding Music with Pictures: Data Visualization for Discovery
(Paul Lamere, The Echo Nest)
I’ve heard Paul speak several times, including his talk at SXSW 2010. I love his talks because they are both idea-rich and visually interesting, and I always feel smarter by the end. Can’t wait to see this one.
The Evolution of Radio and Digital Music
Jim Rondinelli, Slacker.com
The Future of Music
Drew Larner, Rdio
Digital Music ADD – Streaming, Clouds and Stores
Dan Maccarone, Hard Candy Shell
Clearly, this year’s hot topic: how the jukebox in the sky changes the landscape of music consumption. From the (admittedly brief) descriptions, it sounds like Rondinelli’s will have a bit more emphasis on what it means for artists, Larner’s on what it means for companies, and Maccarone’s on what it means for consumers.
Digital Music Smackdown: The Best Digital Music Service
David Hyman, MOG.com
Spotify, MOG, Pandora and Rhapsody executives will mud-wrestle for your amusement. Well, not really. This presentation is billed as a “fiercely competitive discussion” in which the four companies battle it out for the the title of “Best Digital Music Service.” Bring your tough questions.
Music & Metadata: Do Songs Remain the Same?
Jess Hemerly, UC Berkeley
If your iTunes library looks anything like mine, there is a jumble of songs at the bottom that are missing titles, artist information, and the like−missing good metadata, in other words. But bad metadata is more than just an inconvenience: every year, hundreds of thousands of dollars in song royalties from music streaming services go unpaid for lack of information about who to send the cheque to. And music recommendation, discovery, social sharing and purchasing all rely on good metadata, from tags on up. This panel will also discuss legal issues around metadata (and I hope they will also look at some future directions).
We Built This App on RocknRoll: Style Matters
Hannah Donovan, Last.fm and Anthony Volodkin, The Hype Machine
Dear music developers: make your apps look cooler. And if we see another damn headphone girl, we’ll laugh at you and then go elsewhere. A discussion of why design is important from the people behind two of the coolest-looking music sites on the web.
Something good that I missed? Let me know in the comments. Voting is open until August 27th.
EDIT: Check out Paul Lamere’s complementary picks over at Music Machinery.
[and a bit of off-topic self-promotion: I’ve proposed a panel related to my day job – please check it out too!]
Image: Music Hack Day Stockholm by Flickr user paulamarttila, used here under its Creative Commons licence.
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