At different times, I’ve gone through albums of several artists to select and categorize songs. It’s a time consuming task, but the goal was always to improve one’s mood. I’ve done it for myself and others.
Today it got me thinking. Wouldn’t it be great if there was a content selection service that would do this for you? Instead of relying on expensive therapy sessions, you would just get someone or an algorithm to select the music, books, series, movies and/or documentaries for you to inspire you, get another perspective or improve your mood? Usually mood-based suggestions still include content with an underlying depressing tone.
The content is out there. The problem is that we don’t always know where to find it. What if someone could help you with selecting the best content based on your preferences, interests, personality and goals? Algorithms don’t do a great job at that, but what if that’s only because their used database isn’t extensive enough and they narrow things down to too small of a selection too quickly?
Think Netflix, YouTube, Pandora etc. all combined with even more content and where you can add artists, musicians and the like to your favorites, but having categories based on your overall goal of mood improvement, mind expansion or problem solving?
People being different, it wouldn’t be easy to create a successful algorithm and it would require input from a lot of people, but it’s possible. Psychology and social studies may help in the selection process too to perfect such an algorithm.
That’s not to say that entertainment for the sake of entertainment is a waste of time. But being able to find the right content when you desire to improve your mood or get inspired would save a lot of time. Right now, we end up wasting a lot of time trying to find that content.
Sure, there are services like PureFlix that focus on a specific audience, but they already narrowed down their content too much and a lot of it just isn’t that great.
A service that offers the best of the best based on your personality, goals and needs. That’s what I would really like to see. Until that exists, I will keep being selective myself, not (consciously) relying on algorithms.
Didier Strijdonk 