The Jamglue Blog

Milestones, Maps and Mixes!

Right about now, faithful readers of the Jamglue blog might be asking: where you all been at? Its been almost a year and no news - are the founders asleep at the wheel?

Quite the opposite actually - for Jamglue, the silence has been golden. The year 2009 has given us a warm welcome by delivering some of our proudest milestones to date:

Last week, we surpassed 1,000,000 registered users! Our community is thriving and growing with strength and energy. Jamglue’s rappers, producers and mashup artists are making waves not only on Jamglue, but have been signed to record labels, performed on national tours, and have made hit radio singles in cities around the world.

Also not long ago, we celebrated our 2,000,000th mix created on Jamglue! The creativity is astounding, and many of these mixes have been remixed within the community hundreds or thousands of times, setting a new standard for fan interaction and engagement.

And not to leave out all the great Jamglue users who may not be just mixing, but are there checking out the hottest mixes and tracks on Jamglue - in the past month, over 980,000 people have visited Jamglue, and spent an average of 13 minutes on the site. That’s the equivalent of over 212,000 hours, or 8,800 days spent on Jamglue in the past 30 days. Now that’s a lot of love right there!

And now, to take a break from patting ourselves on the back, I’d like to provide an update to the ongoing question: “who you reppin’?”

Top 10 Cities represented on Jamglue this month:

1) New York City (Brooklyn + Manhattan + Bronx)
2) London, United Kingdom
3) Miami, FL
4) Chicago, IL
5) Houston, TX
6) Atlanta, GA
7) Richmond, VA
8 ) Louisville, KY
9) Raleigh, NC
10) Washington, DC

And lastly, here are the winning remixes from our last several contests in 2008:

Dolla Remix Contest (May 2008)

Who is that remix by Dolla feat Desia by aisenod

Tyga Remix Contest (July 2008)

Bear Fight vs. Tyga - Coconut Juice Remix by BearFight

Kidz in the Hall Remix Contest ( August 2008)

Driving Down the Block - Contest Mix [copy] by JayBea

Natasha Bedingfield Remix Contest (November 2008)

Angel Uptempo Club (Official) Contest by mestizo_beats

And some mini-contests we ran:

Best of Jamglue Round 1: Best Rapper on Jamglue Contest (March 2008)

NiqNaq: Best of Jamglue Round 1 beat pack [copy] by niqnaq
Desia Verse Best Of Jamglue by aisenod
Top Notch Best Of Jamglue Verse by topnotchlovesyou

Best of Jamglue Round 2: Best Producer on Jamglue Contest (August 2008)

Best Of Jamglue Round 2 - Contest mix by Dj Pter by Pter_

YourWeek Remix Contest (May 2008)

TurreekK - Your Week’s Theme Remix by TurreekK

January 17th, 2009 divyab

Top 40 the right way

I think everybody who came of age in the 90s has a deep distrust of top 40 radio. It was no good, and together we made “Alternative” a genre (by which I mean it quickly became as corporate and exploitative as other pop music).

As a result, I feel kind of guilty for my addiction to The Hype Machine, particularly when explaining it to people who use Pandora or other personalized recommendation engines (”So it learns what blogs you like?” “No, it just uses all the blogs.”)

So why is it that I enjoy listening to the Hype Machine’s popular feed more than any Pandora channel that I’ve ever been able to carefully fine-tune?

It’s organic

It’s barely worth mentioning with online music: the songs are chosen by the wisdom of the crowds, not a corporate tastemaker.

But this isn’t enough- the charts are full of songs I wouldn’t want to listen to.

It captures interest and attention

Much more important is the way these songs are selected; it’s not that people are just listening to the tracks, it’s that they’re discussing and commenting on them.

In today’s attention economy, the time and effort to author a post and link to an mp3 indicates a level of interest that’s valuable to me as a fellow consumer.

Obviously this is very prone to astroturfing and gaming, but for as long as it remains authentic, it’s great.

It’s very “sourceful”

If I have any kind of strong reaction to a song (enjoyment, curiosity, disbelief, etc), I can go right to the people who propelled it onto the popular page, and find out what’s up with it.

This replaces the DJ in a very pleasing way- when I want some backstory, I’ve got it easily.

It’s timely

Finally, the live performances and Internet memes that show up in the feed are a great way to know what’s going on in the musical world. If an artist dies, releases a new album, breaks up, etc, people will post about it and include new or old tracks.

Often these “breaking” popular songs and viral audio creations appear in the form of multiple remixes, and I certainly hope that someday soon Jamglue’s logs will be full of the Hype Machine spidering all the incoming links.

Enough?

Maybe I’m just making excuses for my laziness, but I honestly think the Hype Machine represents how a Top 40 can really be enjoyable these days. They’re doing a great job, and I’m grateful for the easy and great experience.

(cross posted from my personal blog)

October 2nd, 2006 Casey M.R. Muller