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Coworkers Judged by iTunes Playlists
Science - SPACE.com/LiveScience.com ^ | Mon Apr 4, 4:20 PM ET | LiveScience Staff

Posted on 04/04/2005 7:59:32 PM PDT by Swordmaker

LiveScience.com - Office workers who share music via Apple Computer's iTunes software track their coworkers' comings and goings and form opinions about them based on their playlists.

The opinions are not always what the sharer intended, a new study finds.

The sharing phenomenon can nonetheless create a community of sorts among coworkers who otherwise barely know each other.

The study, of an unnamed mid-sized U.S. company, was funded in part by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST).

"People sharing music in our study were aware of the comings and goings of others in the office because they noticed the appearance and disappearance of others' music on the network," said Amy Voida, a Ph.D. student at Georgia Tech who led the research. "They imagined what other people might think about their music collections, and they were aware of the musical holes left when someone left the company."

Employees used their music libraries to consciously portray an self-image.

"I just went through it to see if there was not like stuff that would be like, I don't know, annoying, that I would not like people to know that I had," said one worker who, believing his music library to be "not very cool," added other tunes in an effort to create a balanced portrayal of himself.

One guy worried what his colleagues might think of the Justin Timberlake and Michael McDonald music that was in his library but which he'd bought for his wife.

Big Brother got in on the game, too. The music files reside on each employees computer and, when shared with people who sign up, are streamed to other members' computers across a local area network. A manager joined one music-sharing group.

"When the manager showed up and could start looking through people's music collections, people began to speculate that the manager's presence might be influencing the way others were managing what music they shared," said Beki Grinter, a Georgia Tech associate professor of computing.

Other findings:

People sometimes claim to listen to others' libraries when in fact they aren't interested and don't listen.

Some people think their own libraries are unique, while coworkers might view them as just like many others.

Lastly, nobody likes an anonymous deejay.

"Most people didn't want to listen to anonymous collections, even though they didn't always want to talk to the playlists' creators," Grinter said. "They went to quite a bit of trouble to figure out which playlists belonged to whom. It's a peculiar social phenomenon. They don't want to live in a completely anonymous world, especially in the workplace."

The Palo Alto Research Center (PARC) participated in the study, which will be presented Tuesday at the Computer-Human Interaction conference in Portland, Ore.

Study: Instant Messaging is Surprisingly Formal :-)

Invasive Creatures Attack Like Internet Viruses

Study: Your Brain Works Like the Internet


TOPICS: Cheese, Moose, Sister; Computers/Internet; Humor; Science; Weird Stuff
KEYWORDS: apple; governmentfunding; itunes; whattheheck
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To: TheOtherOne
oh yea and...


21 posted on 04/04/2005 9:19:45 PM PDT by TheOtherOne
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To: duck duck goose
What would you think of someone with the audio of this on their play list...

Leonard Nimoy's Music Video - Requires Quicktime... broadband only.

The MP3 Version

22 posted on 04/04/2005 9:34:43 PM PDT by Swordmaker
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In addition to "YMCA", look for:

"Dude Looks Like A Lady" -- Aerosmith
"Lola" -- the Kinks

;')


23 posted on 04/04/2005 9:59:54 PM PDT by SunkenCiv (last updated my FreeRepublic profile on Friday, March 25, 2005.)
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To: CheneyChick
Are you worried that everyone will laugh at your collection of David Cassidy songs?

No, I'm worried they might refer me to a shrink.


24 posted on 04/04/2005 10:15:07 PM PDT by antiRepublicrat
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To: duck duck goose
Am I a freak??

Well, if you have to ask ... =)

25 posted on 04/05/2005 4:08:43 AM PDT by softwarecreator (Facts are to a liberal as holy water is to a vampire.)
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To: duck duck goose
I have Karen Carpenter and Disco Duck!!!

Oh boy, I went to the iTunes Music Store to look for Disco Duck.

This is what I it returned:

Har!

26 posted on 04/05/2005 8:06:34 AM PDT by Yossarian (Remember: NOT ALL HEART ATTACKS HAVE TRADITIONAL SYMPTOMS)
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To: Yossarian
"This is what I it returned:" should read "This is what it returned:"

Blasted "Spring Ahead"....more coffee please....

27 posted on 04/05/2005 8:08:45 AM PDT by Yossarian (Remember: NOT ALL HEART ATTACKS HAVE TRADITIONAL SYMPTOMS)
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To: Swordmaker

Aweaome!!


28 posted on 04/05/2005 8:52:45 AM PDT by duck duck goose (Happy Monday ALL!!!)
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To: Yossarian

Now thats funny!!!


29 posted on 04/05/2005 8:54:41 AM PDT by duck duck goose
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To: Swordmaker
One guy worried what his colleagues might think of the Justin Timberlake and Michael McDonald music that was in his library but which he'd bought for his wife.

Sure he did. Probably downloaded Michael Bolton as well.

30 posted on 04/05/2005 8:56:11 AM PDT by dfwgator (It's sad that the news media treats Michael Jackson better than our military.)
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To: Swordmaker; duck duck goose
It gets worse. A friend of mine has the Nimoy/Shatner album.

Most of it is worse than the Ballad of Bilbo Baggins. But what I need to get is this:

Symphonic Led Zeppelin, performed by the London Philharmonic. It is actually quite good.

31 posted on 04/05/2005 8:58:43 AM PDT by antiRepublicrat
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To: Swordmaker

I put one together here, because I wanted to burn a CD filled with mp3s. It's got Roland Kirk, Djivan Gasparyan, Ambrosia, John Fahey, a couple dozen others.


32 posted on 04/09/2005 9:50:57 PM PDT by SunkenCiv (Deviance or rebellion without consequences is conformity.)
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