Hype Machine // The Interactive Twitter Music Chart
From: Anthony Volodkin – Hype Machine Founder
We’ve been frustrated by a few things about music charts recently. One is the issue of chart integrity, the lines between manipulation & engagement and how to keep such a system honest while rewarding the right people. Another is the terrible quality of most music services powered by Twitter.
Most of them have serious problems. Some don’t reveal the methods or sources in which they’ve gathered their data, just publishing the chart and hoping people would buy it. That prevents the web at large from auditing and finding errors in their methods and work.
Others don’t tell us anything new and don’t account for the social and interactive nature of Twitter, lumping it all together as ‘activity’. So we end up with U2 as the top artist (or Michael Jackson, for the foreseeable future). Finally, the remaining set of tools just implements a file sharing layer on top of Twitter, then allowing others to search for uploaded media. Lame.
Given all this, we did what we usually do when there is music/web stuff out there that sucks: we built our own!
How does it work?
We monitor Twitter for links pointing to tracks on the Hype Machine. We then give each of those tweets a number of points based on the number of followers (and the ratio of friends & followers) that person has. Finally, we add up all the points and figure out which tracks are tweeted by either the most influential twitter users, or by the largest group. Simple.
Just tweet a link to any track on the Hype Machine and it will alter that track’s position in the chart. You can also check your Twitter score on the page to see how many points your tweet would add. Try it!
How is this chart different?
Our interactive Twitter music chart addresses the problems we discussed above. It’s easy to audit as you can see how many points were added by what users and when. It also accounts for the social nature of Twitter by carefully weighing more influential users vs. groups of less influential users. Finally, it presents an easily digestible overview of what’s going on in an interactive way. We welcome everyone tweaking and changing the chart with their tweets – that’s the point!
How is the Twitter user score determined?
We use a formula designed to spotlight tracks tweeted by influential Twitter users as well as those tweeted by groups of people overall. Here is the actual formula:
round(( 1/3 * (twitter_followers / 10) ^ 0.5 ) * (twitter_followers / twitter_friends) * 10), 2)
The follower/friends ratio in this case has a floor of 0.25 and a ceiling of 3.0 to limit certain extremes. We really like the results we’ve been seeing with this approach, but we also know there are many serious math geeks out there. If you have comments on creating a better formula that would better capture the different kind of tweeting activity, let’s chat.
Oh yeah, and one last thing: @hypem will now tweet whenever a new artist or track makes it to the top of any of our popular ranks, so follow us to stay in the loop.
Would love to know what you think!
Related Posts:
Rollo & Grady Interview with Anthony Volodkin (Click Here)
July 9th, 2009 at 10:51 am
//How does it work?
We monitor Twitter for links pointing to tracks on the Hype Machine.//
Doesn’t this automatically make the service a bullshit tip? Since Hype Machine put restrictions on who they’ll even run, they effectively lessened their own universe. If it doesn’t link back to Shite Machine, it’s not “valid” in their mind?
Fail.
July 9th, 2009 at 11:08 am
Love hypem but it is plagued by ridiculous remixes.
July 9th, 2009 at 11:23 am
KVN:
Some Remixes are great, while others are disappointing. I would like to have a top 100 list of cool indie tracks, minus hip-hop, remixes and pop. It will happen one day.
July 9th, 2009 at 11:25 am
Hi CD:
I haven’t spent enough time with the service. At first glance, it looked cool.
July 9th, 2009 at 12:03 pm
Don’t get me wrong, i use HM damn near daily and i’m a Twitter junkie (hell, you knew thatt; i’ve followed you for months and believe i’ve DM’d you once or twice).
Upon further review, however, HP’s purpose here seems to go against their assumed (at least by me) mission statement, which is to bring cats music they’ve never heard before. If that’s the case, what difference does it make if it’s “ranked” or “most popular?”
Clearly, i still have a bug up my ass from when they limited who could make HP in the first place. i’ll survive, though, assuming it’s not a poisnous insect.
July 9th, 2009 at 12:28 pm
CD:
I wasn’t questioning you. I have blinders on with the Hype. I think it’s the best thing that has happen for music blogs. People will disagree, but I would have never found the blogs that I follow without it. It’s also provided me an outlet to reach people with similar music tastes. Lets face it, the Hype wants to eventually position itself to be bought out, and I do not blame them.
How are they limiting blogs? I’m not aware of their current procedures.
July 9th, 2009 at 12:32 pm
There are probably better discussions on it (and who knows, maybe i misunderstand what they’ve done), but here’s the deal:
http://elbo.ws/vanilla/comments.php?DiscussionID=2938
July 9th, 2009 at 12:36 pm
If i understand that correctly, unless you’re in their Top 100, your music blog doesn’t show up in their listings.
Furthermore, i’ve never fully understood what magic formula they use to get one’s blog on the Hype Machine in the first place.
i write for a handful of much smaller (than your) music blogs and none of them have been able to crack the HM radar, even though we follow their requirements: post mp3s, links to buy, etc.
Just call me Bitter Betty, i guess.
July 9th, 2009 at 12:44 pm
CD:
I just emailed you some info.
July 9th, 2009 at 12:51 pm
Hasn’t come through yet, but i’ll keep an eye open.
Muchas Thankos.
Is there any question why i love this site?
July 9th, 2009 at 12:59 pm
Email me your email address (rollogrady@gmail.com)
July 9th, 2009 at 1:32 pm
Doesn’t look like it made it my way.
July 9th, 2009 at 1:39 pm
CD
email me your address – (rollogrady@gmail.com)
July 9th, 2009 at 1:46 pm
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July 10th, 2009 at 6:19 am
rollogrady
I agree but I hate digging through all the crap to find one good one. I would love that as well. It seems like they are trying to do some bigger and better things right now so I will hold out hope.