Most of them have serious problems.  Some don’t reveal the methods or sources in which they’ve gathered their data, just publishing the chart and hoping people would buy it.  That prevents the web at large from auditing and finding errors in their methods and work.

Others don’t tell us anything new and don’t account for the social and interactive nature of Twitter, lumping it all together as ‘activity’.  So we end up with U2 as the top artist (or Michael Jackson, for the foreseeable future). Finally, the remaining set of tools just implements a file sharing layer on top of Twitter, then allowing others to search for uploaded media. Lame.

Given all this, we did what we usually do when there is music/web stuff out there that sucks: we built our own!

Check it out here: Twitter Music Chart

How does it work?
We monitor Twitter for links pointing to tracks on the Hype Machine.  We then give each of those tweets a number of points based on the number of followers (and the ratio of friends & followers) that person has. Finally, we add up all the points and figure out which tracks are tweeted by either the most influential twitter users, or by the largest group.  Simple.

Just tweet a link to any track on the Hype Machine and it will alter that track’s position in the chart. You can also check your Twitter score on the page to see how many points your tweet would add.  Try it!

How is this chart different?
Our interactive Twitter music chart addresses the problems we discussed above.  It’s easy to audit as you can see how many points were added by what users and when.  It also accounts for the social nature of Twitter by carefully weighing more influential users vs. groups of less influential users.  Finally, it presents an easily digestible overview of what’s going on in an interactive way. We welcome everyone tweaking and changing the chart with their tweets - that’s the point!

How is the Twitter user score determined?
We use a formula designed to spotlight tracks tweeted by influential Twitter users as well as those tweeted by groups of people overall.  Here is the actual formula:

round(( 1/3 * (twitter_followers / 10) ^ 0.5 ) * (twitter_followers / twitter_friends) * 10))

The follower/friends ratio in this case has a floor of 0.25 and a ceiling of 3.0 to limit certain extremes.  We really like the results we’ve been seeing with this approach, but we also know there are many serious math geeks out there.  If you have comments on creating a better formula that would better capture the different kind of tweeting activity, let’s chat.

Oh yeah, and one last thing: @hypem will now tweet whenever a new artist or track makes it to the top of any of our popular ranks, so follow us to stay in the loop.

Would love to know what you think!

To move it in a new direction we’ve removed the list of artists in the earlier post.  Even though we’ve made it clear that it was impossible for us to identify the people creating the accounts & favoriting the content (nor was it possible to determine the relationship that those people have with the artists), it was still tempting for some readers to jump to conclusions.

Discussing such conclusions distracted us from the real question. Neil Cartwright, who works with Master Shortie, refocused the conversation by asking: “What is the difference between hype & promotion, when is it marketing or manipulation and where is the balance?“

Judging by the responses we’ve received to our earlier post, there are many answers to this question, some of which we seriously disagree with.  We think the answer is simple: make great music and do the right thing.  Work with people who will do the same.

Quality is hyperefficient, so much of the marketing will happen on its own.  The rest will be about getting your amazing music out there in a way that’s consistent with you and how you work.

Where is that line for you? What is promotion and what’s manipulation?

Shortly after we made the change, we were alerted by the Sweet Touch blog about an artist (or their team) potentially altering the charts.  We then started reviewing account activity across the entire site and were able to confirm this and find other bands and blogs engaging in similar activity.

We found several artists (or their representatives) and blogs creating numerous accounts on the site and favoriting their tracks to get higher visibility in the charts. Because we’ve only recently switched to a chart based on the number of favorites, their efforts were not fruitful, however.  We’ve locked the accounts we found doing this and suspended tracking blogs we’ve detected contributing.

We’ve also taken some extra measures to prevent this in the future. New users on the Hype Machine now have to enter a Captcha, to rule out automated signups, and we monitor the account creation process more closely to detect manual efforts to create fake accounts, too.  As yet another precaution, when creating the Popular charts on the site, we only count the favorites by accounts older than a few days, so that a new wave of manipulative accounts cannot influence the page even if they get past our other checks. We are excited to share these enhancements with you.

Some of these techniques are used by sites like IMDB or Rotten Tomatoes so they’ve stood the test of time.  If you have more feedback on how to make them better, feel free to write using our contact form.  The integrity of what ends up on the Hype Machine is paramount, so we welcome more ideas and constructive criticism.

Finally, here is a list of artists (in alphabetical order) who (or their managers, promoters, interns, determined fans, there is no way to ultimately know) we believe have attempted to alter the charts on the Hype Machine. We thought we’d publish this list to let everyone make their own judgments about quality, integrity and marketing strategies:

[Update 07/07/2009: List of artists removed, see this post for details]

Here is what’s on the page now:
Popular (default view) - the most favorited tracks from the past 3 days.  Once  a track is older than 3 days, it will not appear on this list.
Popular Last Week - the most favorited tracks of the previous week.

What changed?
The previous version of the Popular page offered two views: a view based on the number plays & blog post clicks and a view based on the number of favorites.  We found that determining popularity by the number of favorites made the process more transparent and easier for everyone to understand — what do you think?

This week’s episode of the Radio Show is now live! Listen below or check out the Radio page to see the full set list and featured blogs.

And just in case you missed last week’s episode featuring Burial + Fourtet, Passion Pit and more:

Don’t want to miss another episode? Subscribe to the podcast feed or tune in every Wed and Saturday at 10pm on Radio Gotham!

[Photo by Valpopando on Flickr]

It’s that time already! Our Annual User Survey is our time to gather basic details of who you are, how you use the Hype Machine, and what you think we can improve! It’s only 2 pages and will help us make the site even better.

Take our Annual User Survey (UPDATE: Now Closed)

And for your time, we’ll be giving away some ridiculously cool merch from companies we’ve hand-selected to participate:

(3) A pair of Ultimate Ears SuperFi 5 Earphones!
These babies provide an incredible, noise-isolating listening experience and retail for $170. Listening to the Hype Machine will never be the same.

(2) A custom portrait by Mel Stringer
Mel will hand draw you a digital portrait of you or a loved one! Check out her awesome portfolio or get your own for $70 by emailing her.

(2) $50 Photojojo Store Giftcard
The best photography newsletter also has one of the coolest photography shops online,  including wrap-around corner frames, wifi memory cards, and a bowling-style camera bag!

(2) $25 BuyOlympia Giftcard
I think about the Buy Olympia store as Etsy with an editor. They pick some of the best handmade goods around, like gorgeous notecards, t-shirts you won’t find anywhere else and dozens of ‘zines

(2) Hype Machine MIXA Cassette (USB Drive)
These limited edition Hype Machine style USB drives look just like a cassette (and even come in a cassette case) but are actually a full sized USB drive. Perfect for gift giving your latest mix!

(2) Hype Machine Green T-Shirts
Been drooling over it in our shop but haven’t bought one yet? Now’s your chance to snag one for free!

(2) Hype Machine Vinyl Necklaces
Yep, they are made with authentic recycled vinyl and yep, they really are that sexy.

Take our Annual User Survey (UPDATE: Now Closed)

We’re also excited to be accepted into the iTunes Podcast Directory. Simply search for “hype machine” or click here and subscribe. And of course if you love it, don’t forget to rate it!

Oops, forgot to post about this last week but that just means twice as much fun for you. Our awesome show has been gaining some great traction and Dev + Abbey have been amazing at producing the show with a mix of featured popular content and blogger picks. Go check out the 4th episode of our Radio Show with tracklisting or listen to both episodes below:

Episode 4:

Episode 3:

We encourage you to subscribe to the podcast feed, download the tracks directly and embed them on your site!

We’re looking to hook up radio stations and internet radio stations with the show, so if you have someplace you’d like to hear Hype Machine Radio (like your college station), give us a link in the comments and we’ll get in touch!

Photo by Moggie Rocket

The Hype Machine Radio Show: Episode 2 went live yesterday! Head over to the radio page on our site to listen (stream/download/embed) and see the tracklisting of songs+bloggers we featured this week. We plan on getting a new show out every Wednesday but are still fine-tuning the show+presentation so if you have any feedback, we’d love to hear it!

You’ll also notice the layout for the radio page has changed a bit. The top features our weekly show but you can still find the non-stop stream below that.

Radio photo by Neuenschwander on Flickr

If you are one of the heavier users with many searches, can you email us and let us know how you were using the site?

UPDATE: Now the limit is 30.  We will continue to revise and monitor this situation