Since the turn of the past century, online music blogging sites have become a powerful social media tool for artists to gain followers and most importantly, hype. People love talking about themselves and their personal opinions and online music blogs have become the perfect medium for people to voice those musical tastes and opinions. On top of being a venue for people to talk about music, online music blogs have also become an ideal way for people to discover fresh new underground music.
However, sifting through the countless music blogs that populate the vast caverns of the internet can be a very tedious and time consuming endeavor. This is exactly the problem that Anthony Volodkin set out to solve in 2005 when he created the Hype Machine.
The Hype Machine is an online site that operates as an aggregator of online music blogs and finds the artists and songs that are being most talked about and blogged about on the internet. The machine aggregates and collects songs from a collection of over 1,500 blogs and constantly supplies a stream of fresh new music on the site’s main page.
Furthermore, the site offers the ability to allow users to create detailed profiles which enable them to “heart” songs they like and store them in their virtual Hype Machine playlist for easy access when they want to listen to them again. The Hype Machine also tracks which songs are getting the most attention on its site by keeping track of which songs are receiving the most “hearts” by its users.
The site features the songs with the most “hearts” on its popular page and lists them in a top ten list. It offers a handful of features that allow for its users to customize their profiles to make them fit their personal style. All in all, the Hype Machine offers an ideal medium for people to voice their musical opinions and discover new music in an effective and fun wau.