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February 06, 2004

Comments

Adam Lasnik

I personally find it to be more fascinating than creepy, but I also understand your feelings, especially with something as personal as music.

But this area goes beyond the person-to-person sharing, too. I know folks have been freaked out, even years ago, by Amazon.com recommendations. "Why does it think I would like THAT?!" or "Oh man, I bought a book about growing up gay for my cousin... now does Amazon think I'm gay?" Amazon.com is a company, a set of computers... but at the same time, there's a feeling and perhaps even a concern underneath: how much does what I browse / buy / even think about say about who I am? And how is this shared or interpreted by others?

I'm sure that lines will get even more blurry as collaborative sharing and filtering becomes more a part of our every day life. And while I'm FAR from an expert in this area, I've long been intrigued by these issue and I even started a Collaborative Filtering group on orkut here:
http://www.orkut.com/Community.aspx?cmm=693

Returning to the music issue, though... I wanted to add that Napster also allows for playlist sharing by default (you can even see who else is streaming a track that you're currently listening to), but it doesn't quite have the same iTunes is-he-in-the-next-room-over feel, I admit :)

AJ Kim

This ad-hoc local network phenomenon is happening all over the world now, driven by Net-connected cellphones (& Macs!) Kids today are growing up with this tech-enabled social dynamic -- it's an exciting fronteir for new products & services.

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