Boston: The Hidden Hub of Music and Technology

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.

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Author: Wade Roush

Between 2007 and 2014, I was a staff editor for Xconomy in Boston and San Francisco. Since 2008 I've been writing a weekly opinion/review column called VOX: The Voice of Xperience. (From 2008 to 2013 the column was known as World Wide Wade.) I've been writing about science and technology professionally since 1994. Before joining Xconomy in 2007, I was a staff member at MIT’s Technology Review from 2001 to 2006, serving as senior editor, San Francisco bureau chief, and executive editor of TechnologyReview.com. Before that, I was the Boston bureau reporter for Science, managing editor of supercomputing publications at NASA Ames Research Center, and Web editor at e-book pioneer NuvoMedia. I have a B.A. in the history of science from Harvard College and a PhD in the history and social study of science and technology from MIT. I've published articles in Science, Technology Review, IEEE Spectrum, Encyclopaedia Brittanica, Technology and Culture, Alaska Airlines Magazine, and World Business, and I've been a guest of NPR, CNN, CNBC, NECN, WGBH and the PBS NewsHour. I'm a frequent conference participant and enjoy opportunities to moderate panel discussions and on-stage chats. My personal site: waderoush.com My social media coordinates: Twitter: @wroush Facebook: facebook.com/wade.roush LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/waderoush Google+ : google.com/+WadeRoush YouTube: youtube.com/wroush1967 Flickr: flickr.com/photos/wroush/ Pinterest: pinterest.com/waderoush/