Smart Shuffle

Left - Shuffle, Right - Smart-shuffle

Wouldn't it be nice if all media players, iPods, Android phones, or whatever you use to listen to music could all sync? I would love to look at the statistics on my music listening habits. Which songs get skipped one second in? Which songs have I listened to the most in my lifetime? Which songs are never played? Which songs are over-played?

This got me to thinking about a smarter way to shuffle songs. Let's just assume that somehow, music we listen to was kept track regardless of whatever device we use. Some magical tool that we shove in our ears, I don't know. Think of the possibilities!

Music that was recently added to the library have heavier weight. Songs with high play-counts can slowly decrease in weight à la diminishing returns. Lower play-count songs will be favored over higher play-count songs. The same song will never play back-to-back. An option to have smoother transitions from song to song so we aren't listening to classical Bach one song and then suddenly Lil Wayne.

Ignoring the issue of how to keep track of songs we listen to in our lifetimes, doesn't the technology to do at least the mentioned above already exist? Albeit my play-count in Windows Media Player are pretty abysmal because I chronically skip songs, I would love some of the above-mentioned functionality.


On a side note, I wish a song would count as "played" if at least 50% of the song was listened to. If not 50%, at least make it customizable!