Hype Machine - Web 3.0

About a year ago I was talking with Anthony Volodkin founder of music blog aggregator Hype Machine about getting involved with the site, building a business strategy and generally humming Arcade Fire whilst getting high on a deservedly hyped start-up. He’s based in New York and I’m in London, it proved impractical.

In that time Anthony has amassed an extraordinary team around him and now re-launched Hype Machine (see Read/Write for comprehensive review). For music discovery there is no better site and if the price of an MP3 single drops to zero, he’ll be in a great position to become the main marketing and distribution channel for music discovery.

Blog Oligarch Jason Calacanis says that, ‘Web 3.0 is the creation of high-quality content and services produced by gifted individuals using Web 2.0 technology as an enabling platform. Web 3.0 throttles the ‘wisdom of the crowds’ from turning into the ‘madness of the mobs’ we’ve seen all too often, by balancing it with the respect of experts.’

The combining information of the crowds filtered through the wisdom of the few is a hugely powerful concept and whilst I think buzzcrap like ‘Web 3.0′is semantic flatulence, Hype Machine is a very pure and simple example of the theory according to Jason in action.

I know Anthony has already fielded a lot of interest in the old version of Hype Machine, so I’m not exactly the Noobie Nostradamus when I say they’ll most likely be acquired by a more traditional media publishing company in the not too distant future.

You’d better believe the hype…

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