The history of and 20-year-old behind Hype Machine was discussed in Business 2.0 Magazine at Money.CNN.com in October of last year. I totally missed this. For the fans of Hype Machine, music lovers and blog addicts, it is a must read. And you probably already read it. If not, here is a taste (I took the liberty of linking where linkage was due):
"When I first heard about the Hype Machine, an infant Web service that's making noise in the realm of online music, it was breathlessly described to me as 'the future of all media.'
"Normally, I would've dismissed such panting as ... well, a bunch of hype. But since the heavy breather happened to be Gawker Media founder Nick Denton, I figured that the Hype Machine, at the very least, merited further investigation. So I asked Fred Wilson, venture capitalist extraordinaire and inveterate rock and roller, what he thought. 'The service,' he replied, 'is the best thing to happen to music since the Rolling Stones!'
"The Hype Machine, I soon discovered, is a one-man band: Its creator and sole proprietor is a 20-year-old Russian immigrant named Anthony Volodkin. The son of a software developer (his dad) and a dentist (his mom) who live in New York's Sheepshead Bay, Volodkin studies computer science at Hunter College - though it's abundantly clear that he isn't a member of the pocket-protector set. When we meet for lunch, he wears shoulder-length hair, baggy shorts, and a red Threadless T-shirt with a piece of steak stenciled on the chest.
"There's a little bit of Shawn Fanning in him, along with a touch of Jann Wenner. And while the Hype Machine may never be as famous or influential as Napster or Rolling Stone, Volodkin's baby contains elements of both, updated for the age of blogs - which is why it's so damn interesting.
"A voracious music fan with eclectic (from Arthur Lee and Nina Simone to Mogwai and Massive Attack) and often esoteric (Metronomy, Kid Loco, RJD2) tastes, Volodkin started the Hype Machine in mid-2005." More from this article by John Heilemann at Business 2.0 Magazine
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