To Whom It May Concern

[Phyltre]

I post here to bring to Winamp's attention the apparent death of the Moodlogic software that was once the talk of the town. There was a time, before I registered at these forums, when a new program was being promoted by Winamp. It was seen as the next big step in organizing music, and as the key to creating new realms of Winamp functionality. This program was none other than Moodlogic, a database-oriented system that fingerprints songs based on unique analysis. The ensuing community seemed promising, the updates came regularly, and everyone saw that this could be big, given time to grow.

Several years into the experience, however, Moodlogic development has steadily dwindled as a lack of database updates and program development chews at its userbase. Far more tragic, however, is a seeming lack of internet technology at the Moodlogic center of influence. They post perhaps once every few months (never in news threads), and rarely address serious client issues both with code and financial concerns. Activity in the problem board has far surpassed all others--not as a result of input from Moodlogic, which is nonexistent, but as a result of irate customers who have shelled out dough to the seemingly defunct organization.

Perhaps the greatest reason for concern is that a simple post or two explaining why everything has ground to a halt would do much to ease our minds--yet HQ seems to ignore the fact that they no longer maintain their web presence whatsoever. Leaving many customers feeling scammed. Ironically, many prospective clients are UNABLE TO PURCHASE THE SOFTWARE because of glitches (stemming from compatibility negligence) in the Moodlogic purchase routine. It's becoming somewhat of a joke; their welcome pages exhort features long since dropped (without explanation) from their software, and the network statistics they supply have been static for many months now.

If Moodlogic is failing financially, they need to own up to that fact and tell us what is actually going on. I'm writing this with a quite serious point: Winamp has stakes in this gross negligence of public relations. I'd like some kind of response; in fact, if ML is dying, I suggest Winamp (or the parent company, which will remain nameless) seek to take it over. All the collective work of thousands of users is being wasted, right now, under criminally vacant implementation.

Though surely board mods and most Winamp crew will not have a stake in this, many Winamp users do; and perhaps Nullsoft does as well. If for nothing other than a public service, could someone find out what is going on over there at Moodlogic.com?

[Phyltre]

Just an added note here: I posted this message at the Moodlogic Board, in a thread that a Moodlogic official there had posted in. I posted it June 1st.



Have you considered getting volunteers to handle some of the web-based work over there? Two weeks is a long time for a position to just disappear for two weeks.

I'm assuming that you are either severely (!!)underfinanced or working on several projects at once. Either way, you're being criminally web-inefficient over there; the web presence you're presenting is representative of maybe one or two people, neither of which have a personal computer. Is the hardware you're using really making it impossible for you to just post a few sentences to the site every once in awhile? Steady communication between the consumer and the developing end is what builds a community, not huge information gaps and distrust. If you don't tell us what's going on, we're not going to buy your product--and we've no reason to be part of a dead community.

You must realize that the average internet user has seen dozens of websites with great potential just die because the site never got updated, and people stopped wasting their time looking at the same outdated announcements month after month. Even worse, the service you're selling is community-driven! And internet based!

I can remember when Moodlogic was going to be the next big thing, several years ago. Unfortunately, it's STILL going to be the next big thing. There used to be big general interest in this place; but you're killing it. This is what the user sees: no progress in song data, virtually no input or explanations from developers, near-dead forums with highest activity in support/troubleshooting/complaint posts, no skins yet (the colored ones don't work anymore), empty promises of new services like Mixworld, and even DISAPPEARING functionality, like the Get Music button.

Would some developer somewhere please say SOMETHING regarding ANY of this?


You guessed it, no response whatsoever from them on this. Even though several people posted in the thread asking for any kind of response, as well.

[squakMix]

I have never heard of this program... I'm intrigued. It sounds like all this program/website really needs is a few drops of water, and a little ironing.

It's sad to hear that something with so much potential might be thrown in the trash compacter just because they dont have enough people to mantain it.

[horse-fly]

i used it before, and looked for cracks without end, but i came up short. it is a damn shame that it never took off.

[Twilightseer]

Never used that program for the simple reason it wasn't freeware. But since Nullsoft doesn't own Moodlogic (as far as I know), how would they be responsible for their demise ?

[ElChevelle]

Same here.
Never used it; how is Nullsoft involved?

[Phyltre]

They're involved (no, I don't mean responsible per se) because for quite a long time, Moodlogic was Winamp's featured plugin, featured-featured; it integrated with a custom-designed Winamp Skin and literally became an integral part of the Winamp software for many users. And as Nullsoft is a company, that has to pay bills and employees, making an aquisition of Moodlogic before it dies completely could be a very shrewd move; anyone who knows anything in business knows that the vast majority of successes come either from lifelong work or from simply being in the right place at the right time. For awhile, there, we almost had the impression that Moodlogic and Winamp would become sister-programs (even though Moodlogic fell apart on their half.)

Even though they do want us to pay for a subscription, if you profile songs for them (add them to the database of fingerprints) then you basically get to use the software for free, without any real loss of functionality; so if you profile maybe fifty songs you've activated a collection of maybe six thousand songs. And there's no end of songs to profile, either, so you're still getting it for free. Yet, for whatever reason, there seem to be quite a few people (perhaps with more money than time) that are willing to shell out the money for the activation credits.

My argument is that Moodlogic has the potential to add new dimensions to the Winamp experience--that it once did--but that now criminally faulty management is sinking the program once and for all unless there is some intervention. To be quite honest, volunteers could take up the web-presence side of the slack! Surely something could be done SOMEWHERE here to keep this program alive. Winamp is a party with vested interest here and in my opinion, they could turn this whole thing around...or at least find out what's going on over there.

Quick note: What I'm getting at is that the program DID take off--on the user side. But management and development dropped the ball, so unless something happens soon it'll probably be unrecoverable as a whole.

[Germ]

I scanned over this a bit and it seems to me this Moodlogic works a bit like Musicbrainz does? Or am I wrong?

[mikm]

Musicbrainz + "smart" playlist generating.
It still exists http://www.moodlogic.com/. It gives the option of installing a Winamp plugin.

[Phyltre]

MusicBrainz, I believe, is being developed because people are losing faith in Moodlogic. At least that's what I've heard.

And yes, I should have included that it still works, sort of, over at Moodlogic.com. The problematic thing is that people use Moodlogic partly to keep updated with the latest song data--yet they can't even update themselves, much less the program.
This post has been a long time coming.

[Phyltre]

I should also have included this, since Moodlogic has mostly passed from the public knowledge:

Moodlogic Functionality (past present and "upcoming" according to ML)
1. Uniquely identifying songs based on fingerprinting algorithms, which are used to create files about the songs on a central database.

2. Using the fingerprints to store data such as genre, tempo, mood, lyrics language, lyrics mood, recording quality, level of obscenity, catchiness, time period, etc.

3. Creating playlists based on fingerprint data that are composed of songs in a similar mood/time period/genre, thereby organizing your listening experience.

4. The (now absent) Get Music button, which allowed one to view similar artists or songs based on a song you choose.

5. Editing your id3v1/2 tags to correct data according to the fingerprint data, and group them into folders by artist.

6. An "upcoming-?" Musicworld, in which you share your
playlists (not the actual songs) in an online community, and thereby are shown new artists/songs that you might not hear of otherwise. This would also entail engaging dialogue about favorite artists, etc, in a place where you wouldn't have to hear a song to learn something about it in a familiar format, and decide if you wanted to purchase it.

Something that should be obviously clear at this point:

This database, and Musicworld, could be a huge stepstone toward toward circumventing the RIAA and making finding good music an act of the consumer, not of the producer. It would make finding new users infinitely easier, and would be community-driven (much as Winamp is) once fingerprints are dynamically updated and MusicWorld is opened with appropriate server space. Once this development is made, Moodlogic would only grow and would become a rallying point to indie artists, music lovers, and the average person frustrated with the RIAA's efforts to restrict our listening habits based on THEIR preferences. There would be little maintenance required, and much of it could be simple online communication and therefore volunteer-oriented. For Nullsoft, profits would be almost a given.

Moodlogic has, as an inherently user-driven community, the power to overcome the bottlenecking of the music world. It seems to have been created with the same principles that Winamp was created with. THIS is why it is important. It is an investment in a future not driven solely by profit but also by creativity, and could easily make Winamp a primary tool against those who try to turn music into an assembly-line industry.

Somebody, please do something.

[Phyltre]

Heh...is Time Warner likely to be anti-RIAA? Maybe it could just pass by them and head straight to Nullsoft. (I just remembered that Nullsoft isn't self-managed anymore.)

Even if a takeover is not workable at the moment, I'd sure like there to be some sort of dialogue here. Or at least some general interest, because this is a serious chance for the public to change the future of music.

[CraigF]

dude, nobody gives a flying fuck about moodlogic.

if it was successful enough for people to want to buy it, it'd be a whole lot more active. Ranting on a forum aint gonna change that.

[ElChevelle]

Your voice

Their ears

[anudeglory]

Originally posted by CraigF
dude, nobody gives a flying fuck about moodlogic.

if it was successful enough for people to want to buy it, it'd be a whole lot more active. Ranting on a forum aint gonna change that.

Well that is a very negative attitude isn't it?

I think the fact that people are talking about it, at least a small core of the users, shows that people erm "give a flying fuck".

So ranting on a forum, i.e what a forum is all about, could be quite useful, in either gathering support from other users who wish ML to be revived or gather new interest from new users or even (laughs) make the ML team notice the interest and give us some kind of response.

I've never understood why people bother posting on forums if they are just going to post negative nonsense (by all means do that in the 'fun' part of a forum).

What would be a whole lot more useful is if people posted constructive criticism, but then i guess people aren't that rational and your opinion is your own.

[CraigF]

ok then, here is my rational answer.

ML offered a very costly way of working with your music en masse. It has been pushed out by services such as audioscrobbler and musicbrainz, both of which are free, and authentic developing community efforts with tie ins to many other projects out there.
It offers no way to interface with itself except through its own client, contrary to the way in what most people are working towards in the metadata web services sector (amazon, google, freedb etc.). Again, this does nothing to contribute to any kind of community development efforts.

The original thread author was looking for the potential of a Nullsoft/AOL aquisition of ML, which obviously the forums are not the correct place to discuss, and given that this forum is open to discussion, I added that obviously since, as the original author stated, the project appears dead, it is quite likely that business is not doing at all too well and that would make it unlikely that Nullsoft/AOL would deem it a likely investment opportunity.

Frankly, I would post constructive critisism if there was indeed any to post. However, I believe that the argument is very much a moot one with all factors being quite obvious to see. If you wish to draw contradictions, then fine. All I will do is direct you to www.musicbrainz.org or www.audioscrobbler.com

[Phyltre]

[ContradictionDraw]
Moodlogic is only as "very costly" as Winamp is. Less, actually, because not paying doesn't limit your functionality so long as you profile songs (which is the point of the program anyway.)

Moodlogic was not "pushed out" by other services. It began to die due to lack of implementation--something quickly and easily remedied in the real world as well as the digital one.

Moodlogic has long offered developers access to the full range of Moodlogic data, which as you might assume is far more formidable than that used normally in client operation.
This has largely gone without being taken advantage of, through no fault of availability. To say that this does not contribute to community-driven efforts merely shows a lack of background knowledge, and of initiative to go find out.

I wasn't looking for a "merger" so much as official word from somewhere--the idea of a buyout was just an idea, drawing from certain similarities in what Nullsoft used to be and what Moodlogic could be.

Perhaps the factors are "obvious to see" in your perception because you're not really looking at the factors so much as preconceptions; I'm not sure. But you're being quite negative, and making quite a few moot points yourself.
[/CondtradictionDraw]

Please don't think I haven't done quite a bit of research into this over the years. And you're welcome to give me any place better to discuss this than here.

[Wildrose-Wally]

It was just a fuckin' plugin, get over it.

[Phyltre]

You had me worried, right up until the point I realized there was no way you could have actually read any of the posts above that. Maybe you should, though.

[ElChevelle]

I don't give ex-girlfriends that much thought.

[Phyltre]

Point taken, but I don't have any ex-girlfriends. My girl and I have been dating for three and a quarter years now.

And by that, I mean that I am a deliberate and somewhat stubborn person, who thinks things over well ahead of time and rarely makes mistakes in something I've thought out. So this isn't just frivolous crap, as most people seem to assume.

As justification, I offer that nowhere have I found a community that has enough backing to enact a system of music recommendations that would be broad enough to be useful to a majority of people, and I am trying to make waves wherever I can to create one (as I lack funds to make one myself.) In my opinion, this is very important to the short-term and possibly long term future of the ideals of the music industry; doubtless, I am only one person posting on some crazy forum. However, the penalty of silence is a quiet death.

If you're going to be mute, then no one is going to listen to you.

[Phyltre]

It was bought by All Media Guide in May. With any luck, development will continue.

http://www.allmediaguide.com/pr/20060522.html

And--you guessed it--there's been no word from the company since I wrote the original post.

[rockouthippie]

Like other Nullsoft related products, some of these were on the heel of getting sued off the planet before getting bought by AOL.

"Comprehensive metadata" and file identification would only be needed back in the old days when Nullsoft developers wore a patch over one eye ;-)

Do you remember "Waste"?, the relatively secure filesharing software?.

We could go back to the old days when Nullsofts use of Frauenhofer MP3 codec was illegal and you were committing a felony to have Winamp on your computer.....

10 short years, the schreech of a modem, and a 75 mhz Pentium cost $1000.

I remember, I was running this site in 1996 http://kvande.***********/. Make sure you have anti-spyware software installed before you visit Tripod Not so 10 years ago. I wonder if my old ftp password still works. It typed it enough times.

I can't believe they never killed this site in 10 years. That site might have pulled 10 or 15 megabytes a month as compared to 4.8 Terabytes for the site below last month.

I used Winamp 1.0 for a while or Real.... Real was good because it actually didn't sound super-awful at 16kbps.

There is actually a site that still uses that old codec at http://transmediasf.com/sorry.htm . Not too bad still. I drop Jim French a note once in a while. Maybe I should tell him to come out of the stoneage. My linux box will no longer play the old codec.

One thing that was good. Whats a virus

And Krivanek is right, winamp did lose it's soul.

[ElChevelle]

They didn't lose it, they sold it.....to the devil.