MOG (http://www.mog.com)

What is it?

-“ MySpace for Music Lovers”
--a combination music blog, social networking site, and music discovery tool

-Music Blog
--users can write blog posts that display on their mog
--can be focused on aspect of music, but not required
--can upload 1 song/video and/or photo to accompany each post
--the song/video then appears as a streaming player at bottom of post
---copyright?

-social networking aspects
--easy to find MOGgers with similar interests
--can use tags on posts/songs
--share your MOGentries or others via email, facebook, or dig

-music discovery
--driven by user recommendations
--30-second sound samples of songs
--videos
--direct links to iTunes and Amazon
--Dedicated pages for every artist, album, and song
--section devoted to music news

-Going through substantial growing pains
--A slew of new users, most through facebook
--Significant slowdowns
---page loads, players, and played song updates all run noticeably slow
---blog widgets are particularly glacial
--Adding additional server capacity, expect problems to be resolved soon
--supported by ad revenue


What is the site for, generally?

-comprised of various widgets
--mog automated widgets
---rely on information uploaded from mog-o-matic/your music collection
----last song played
----top artist this month
--user input widgets
---Information is added and deleted by the user
----My best live recordings
----Artists you should know
--Custom widgets
---User created
----Top soundtrack songs
----Favorite songs of the summer
----What I’m reading now

-mog-o-matic
--tool downloaded from mog
--indexes your digital music collection
---from folders you specify
--keeps track of what songs you play and uses the info in various functions
---updating of played songs is not instantaneous
--technical requirements
---pc – 14 different players recognized i.e.windows media, real, & itunes
---mac – itunes is required
--downloading mog-o-matic is not required to use mog
---not downloading limits experience severely
----many widgets won’t work
----recommendations won’t work
----limits social functions

-blog posts
--can be about music, life, anything
--upload an mp3
--embed a youtube or google video

-your music collections
--after mogifying you collection, mog will be an online record of your music


How could it help promote a teen music collection to the Internet Community?

-blog posts/uploaded mp3’s
--highlight a recent acquisition
--ask a opinion of an up and coming artist

-tracking plays of library’s digital music collection
--show what is available
--show you what genres/artists are popular to help better focus budget


How can it help connect teens to new music (aka listener’s advisory)?

-Magic Button
--makes all suggestions and displays be based on your music collection
--must have installed and ran mog-o-matic

-Trusted MOGS
--users can mark Mogs of people whose taste is music they trust

-MOGS like Me
--MOG analyzes your collection to suggest songs that mesh with your taste

-Recommendations page
--highlights what’s most popular that day

-Celebrity Moggers
--see what their favorite artists are listening to
---Ben Gibbard
---?uestlove


How can it be integrated with other services?

-can use a music library that the library has already imported into itunes

-widgets to display information to blogs/facebook
-RSS feeds