Interview with Daya Baran of Gruuve
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“Gruuve”:http://www.gruuve.com is a music search and discovery engine. Gruuve offers users personalized recommendations based on the music they like.
Daya is the founder of Gruuve, and he oversees the strategic initiatives for the company. Previously, he was the founder of Accencia, an internet appliance for voice recognition and storage. Before that, he was the founder of TRISTAR, an internet investment fund. He also runs the “WebGuild.org”:http://www.webguild.org, which is the largest professional web organization in Silicon Valley – WebGuild is backed by Google. |
How does Gruuve differentiate itself from Pandora?
Gruuve is the intersection of “Google”:http://www.google.com and “MySpace”:http://www.myspace.com. Our content in organized in two ways: traditional search and user generated. Users contribute to our library, rate songs, and build our recommendation information. Based on user generated data, our recommendation engine perceives which songs users might be interested in. For example, let’s say you like U2 and Britney Spears. I like Jessica Simpson and U2. The system will recommend Jessica Simpson to you and Britney Spears to me. Gruuve is proactive and it grows daily.
What are the advantages of user generated ratings? Is anyone employed at the headquarters to add to the primarily user-generated library?
We are moving from a broadcast with narrow selections and to a universal cast, multi-selection, time shiftable model. Consumers are determining consumption – when, what and where they want it. The major advantage is that it happens online with thousands of artists and hundreds of users globally, 24 hours a day – far outpacing the efficiency or resources of any corporation. That is the power of Gruuve.
Let’s talk about the compatibility of your widget. Is MySpace the only platform with which your widget it compatible or have you also considered sites like Google and Netvibes?
We support “MySpace”:http://www.myspace.com and over 300 additional websites like “Friendster”:http://www.friendster.com and “Facebook”:http://www.facebook.com. You name it and our widget plugs into it.
Bonus: What’s your favorite song?
Favorite song at the moment is “Homeboy by Jojo”:http://www.gruuve.com/searchresults.php?r=1169756054&a=1235980747&ri=&q=JoJo.
Copyright © 2007 by Sonia Aggarwal