Support Forum

It kinda bugs me that I have to select "I own this..." to prevent an item from being recommended repeatedly. Just because I like one song from Sting's entire solo collection (for example) doesn't mean I want to own the CD right now. Of course, I also don't want to say "not interested" or lie and choose "I own this" because there MAY come a day when solo-Sting would be slightly more appealing to me, but I've told Filter "No more Sting! I already own it" and poor Sting never shows up in any of my lists ever again : (

It may be nice to pseudo-separate the marketing aspects from the discovering aspects of Filter - like have the default section for shopping&research, but have a place I can go to cruise through 'discovering' music (or movies) and encounter things I've never heard, instead of rediscovering things I've heard-but-decided-not-to-buy...

Another idea would be a recommendation playlist-randomizer.  In addition to hitting "Show More" and then "Play All" to hear samples of new music, maybe have an automatic "Pick 20/30/50 For Me" option that puts Filter on auto-pilot and queues-up 20/30/50 (or whatever) songs from my 'Music For You" list.  The same would be nice for movie previews; I like the idea of 'being shown' what is out there, as opposed to 'looking' for what's out there.

The client when downloaded should mark this stuff as owned automatically for you. I personally think we should have an option in preferences to allow owned items to be included in the list of recommendations. We have to code behind the scene to return from your collection only ( for playlists in the client player), from everything except your collection, or from everything. It could be possible to expose that via a UI.

Just so you know, results from the ratings settings are used to influence the recommendations we generate.  If you rate an artist (Sting) with a low rating, the probability of that artist (and any of his/her songs) appearing again in recommendatin results is much lower.  This is different to saying "i own it" or "no, not ever ever again" because you obviously can change the influence factor again in the future (should the day ever arise when you do like Sting....).  Will think about this a bit more, because I'm not sure there's an obvious UI that allows someone to say "dont like this person at the moment, but maybe sometime in the future"

Also might be orth pointing out that saying you own a particular album or track only blocks those specific tracks from future recommendations - other songs and albums by the same artist can still be recommended.

Interesting idea about the "heard but decided not to buy yet" section. 

It isn't that I don't want to see an artist (Sting), but that the SAME song keeps coming up. So, I'm trying to "discover" music, but I keep getting "Fields of Gold" (which I gave a 73 back on the 100pt scale).  I don't care if another song I -haven't- already rated comes up...

So, I check "I own it" and it goes away. No big deal, 'cept I don't actually own it, and this isn't the only song that does this to me. I get a lot of Rob Thomas, Alicia Keys, Collective Soul, 50 Cent, etc.  Unless I go through and say "I own" all these songs, they keep coming up.

So, once I've heard a song -and- rated it on Filter, should I automatically click "I own it" so it doesn't keep coming up?

Just saying that I want more NEW music that I haven't already heard (and rated in most cases). Hence the separate "discovery" and "purchase/research" aspects...

 

right, i see what you mean now.  yes, there have been occasions where some songs have been appearing pretty regularly, and we're looking into it.

But you shouldnt need to click "I own it" because, well, you don't own it.  We need to think of a mechanism that allows you to put these to one side and see other songs.