SXSW 2012

Spotify, Pandora, MOG, Aweditorium and many more aim to provide the ultimate experience in music discovery -- they claim to have the "winning strategy" with their unique combination of an extensive catalog, social media integration, and algorithms. But what about the human element in music discovery? Not just your friend who tells you what’s cool -- which is cool -- but real DJs, with a passion for music and the evolution of an artist. What about websites and blogs like Pitchfork and Stereogum -- humans who write about music and even present the music they write about? In the age of machines, is the human dead? Is there still a need for the knowledgeable, passionate, quirky but unpredictable human?Are hybrid models like We Are Hunted and WahWah.fm the future?In "Man vs. Machine for Music Discovery" KCRW, the noted station in Los Angeles, CA will convene a diverse panel to discuss their potential for success and what they might portend for the future of man vs. machine.

There is now some real competition in the cloud services marketplace, and while good value, ease of use, beauty of the interface and breadth of the catalog are all important factors in winning over users, a powerful discovery tool is at the heart of retaining them. The approaches taken by four companies in developing effective methods for discovering new music are assessed: how do social music recommendations stack up against algorithms, deep metadata gathering and data mining? What are the consumer's expectations? And is there anything acts can do to improve their visibility and "recommendability"? Gain some insights into the evolution of this exciting and fast-expanding sector.