matchmine Goes Live With Two Partners- What Does That Mean?
On Monday at 9:00 am, matchmine announced the following:
NEEDHAM, Mass.–(BUSINESS WIRE)–matchmine™ today announced that the first two partners in the MatchKey Partner Network have gone live with the matchmine Media Discovery Platform™. Fuzz.com, a music company providing a bold new solution to connect artists and fans, and FilmCrave.com, a social utility revolving around movie reviews, are leveraging the platform to empower users to discover content they love based upon the MatchKey™, a sophisticated digital representation of a user’s personal interests and tastes across multiple media types.
In addition, the company also announced enhancements to the matchmine Media Discovery Platform, including easier widget-like partner implementation, improved discovery algorithms and the ability to store MatchKeys online. The most significant of these improvements is the ability for users to create, manage and access their MatchKey online, eliminating the need for downloadable software of any kind. Now, by enabling users to store their preferences securely and anonymously on the Web, the MatchKey makes it almost effortless for users to instantly share their unique tastes and preferences with each matchmine partner site they visit and instantly discover content just for them. With each use, the MatchKey learns and evolves preferences across media types, providing a richer, more intuitive discovery experience for the user.
Saying "matchmine announced" almost feels like I’m speaking in the third person, as I am an employee of matchmine. And, because of that, I will fully disclose the fact that I am am completely biased. I do not claim to be a neutral, detached, objective observer.
And while I do not claim objectivity, I can say one thing: Even if I didn’t work here, I’d still be a huge fan of the concept. Because once you boil it down, matchmine is trying to solve the following problem:
There’s great stuff out there on the internet. Lots of it. Somewhere out there is a song that you’d love. There’s a video that would be your favorite. There’s a blog that speaks directly to your interests. So how do you find them?
I have to admit: I am not your typical web user. I’m not a "just use the internet to check my email and send pictures of lolcats to my friends" type of user. I read blogs constantly. I get 99.45% of my news from the web. I find nearly all of the music I buy from web sites and blogs, and I then buy my music on iTunes. For me, anything having to do with media discovery or consumption takes place between http:// and .com.
To me, finding something new is a huge hassle. I know that what I want is out there, but I first need to search, then sort, then try another search term, rinse, repeat. And the biggest pain to me is that even if I’ve told one site a lot about what I like, it doesn’t help me anywhere else. If I have trained Amazon.com to know exactly what kind of books I like, I can’t take that info with me to, say, Barnes and Noble. If Netflix knows how I feel about every movie I’ve ever seen, that doesn’t help me at Blockbuster.
And that’s where the MatchKey comes in. It’s a "digital representation of your personal interests and tastes," which really translates to: it stores what you like and don’t like, and when you go to a matchmine partner site, they’re able to serve you the stuff you’ll like based on your MatchKey. That is a complete and pathetic oversimplification, but it gives you the basic idea of what it does.
Until Monday, I would give people my 30 second explanation, and they’d usually walk away with an understanding of:
- What a MatchKey is
- Why it could be useful
- Where it would be nice to use a MatchKey
But until now, people could only understand the concept. At best, they could say "sounds like a good idea if you can actually pull it off." Well, we’ve taken the next step: we’ve lit up two partners to show how it works.There are more partners coming soon (if you’re interested, check back often in the next couple of weeks), but seeing the MatchKey in action on two sites brings the idea from abstract to something that exists in reality. With that said, let’s have a look.
Site One: Fuzz.com
Fuzz is an indie music community. If you like finding new music, and are the kind of person that wants to be the first to discover a band before anyone has heard of them, this is the place for you.
To see how the MatchKey comes in, head over to fuzz.com and sign up for an account (free, of course). Then, after you’re all set and logged in, click on the music tab. You’ll se this:
Click that guy and you’ll be able to create your MatchKey. It now lives on Fuzz and is used to give you music recommendations.
Site Two: Filmcrave
Filmcrave is a community that’s all about movie lists. Lots and lots of movie lists.
After you sign up on filmcrave (free, again), you’ll see this:
Click on that, and it’ll detect that you’ve got a MatchKey from Fuzz.com. Now you can get movie recommendations based on your MatchKey:
Summary:
At matchmine we’ve gone from an idea, to a proof of concept, to something that actually exists on two partner sites. More partners will be coming soon (check back in the next couple of weeks), and you’ll be able to see just how useful the MatchKey is going to be. Right now you can get recommendations from two sites, but soon you’ll be able to find stuff you’re going to love across the web.
Hey, I might be biased. I might not be impartial. But honestly, I want this thing myself. I’m looking forward to the day when I can show up at the sites I use and automagically get the content I spend hours looking for today. It’s going to happen.
Enough cheerleading for one day.
Filed under: Uncategorized, media discovery, shameless self promotion, startups
Nice post, nathan. I think I’m starting to get it
[...] It’s time. We’ve fully launched our media discovery platform with two partners: Fuzz, an independent music site linking musicians and fans and Filmcrave, a social network built around movie lists. Another post on the launch can be found here. [...]
Awesome news! Glad to see those widgets out.