Boston: The Hidden Hub of Music and Technology

Wade Roush10/17/07Follow @wroush

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Emergent Music
Headquarters: Portland, ME
Year Launched: 2004
CEO: Diane Sammer
Funding: Friends, family, and angel investors, plus debt funding from the Maine Technology Institute.

First of all, forget the definition of “goomba” you learned from The Sopranos. Emergent Music says the word actually means “a companion or associate, especially an older friend who acts as a patron, protector, or advisor.”

Emergent Music’s first offering, Goombah supplies companions in the form of users of Apple’s iTunes music management program. When new users download Goombah’s small application, it scans their iTunes music library and matches them with a group of 20 other Goombah users that the software judges to have similar tastes. Then users receive recommendations based on songs that appear in other members’ libraries but aren’t in their own. “This process democratizes music by putting the promotional power in the hands of music lovers, rather than the traditional model that relies on commercial tastemakers,” Goombah’s site says. Users can adjust Goombah by requesting new matching members or turning up the “Adventurousness” slider. … Next Page »

Wade Roush is Xconomy's chief correspondent and editor of Xconomy San Francisco. You can subscribe to his Google Group or e-mail him at wroush@xconomy.com. Follow @wroush