MTV Networks is going back to its roots: music
On Tuesday, New York-based MTV, which is owned by media giant Viacom, is launching the beta test of a new "music discovery" website called MTV Music Meter.
It's a new-school effort from an old-school player.
"This list is a pure hotness list," Shannon Connolly, Vice President of Digital Music Strategy at MTV said in an interview with Wired.com. "We are intentionally presenting artists to the user that are high-ranking in velocity."
Velocity, in this case, means buzz – measured daily by incorporating feeds from Twitter, Facebook, and news sites from around the web. MTV is using technology developed by a company called The Echo Nest to determine the most buzz-worthy songs and artists on any given day.
"We are working with MTV on next-generation music products that take advantage of our web-aware discovery technology and developer tools," said Jim Lucchese, CEO of The Echo Nest. "This partnership capitalizes on our two companies’ respective strengths – The Echo Nest’s dynamic understanding of the music web and MTV’s unique ability to connect with and entertain the largest collection of music fans on the web."
Rhapsody is the sole music partner. There hasn't been any money exchanged – yet. "They were able to work with us to create to the best sampling user experience in terms of all the legal audio provider options," said Connolly.
