FlowingData Forums » Statistics and Data

Tracking music-play statistics via iTunes?

Started 3 months ago by artik / 2 posts

  1. artik
    Member
    Posted 3 months ago #

    I'm looking to analyze the music I listen to over a period of time. Not so much stats on artists, genres, ratings or song-lengths, but more as an exercise to discern a pattern in my listening preferences over time (say beginning of week vs end of week, particular times of the day, music to accompany my daily commute).

    I did find an article that had a few promising links (http://www.tunequest.org/a-look-at-itunes-statistics-options/20060904/).

    The problem with most of the software linked to in the article was that it did not give me statistics or analysis over time. This could be a problem with the depth of data available in the iTunes XML file, but I'd be willing to sync my iPhone/iPod every day for a month or two, if that's what is needed.

    I considered using yfd, but I'm concerned that given the amount of time I listen to music at work, it might cause severe disruptions in my work day if I had to tweet every time I make a conscious song/artist/genre choice.

    Your thoughts?

  2. nathany
    FlowingData Editor
    Posted 3 months ago #

    i've thought about this too some. the tough part is getting patterns over time because, like you said, the iTunes XML only gives aggregates.

    the quick and dirty way i would go about it would be to write a script that parses your iTunes XML each day, and then sends the data over your.flowingdata using the Twitter API. Then you could run the script once a day or whatever.

    Or maybe you could try something with last.fm?

    @nair77b makes use of the last.fm API and then logs listening with YFD:

    http://your.flowingdata.com/nairb774/page/291/


Reply

You must log in to post.

About this Topic