It's a merry-go-round of musical fun

I just can't stop thinking about this new version of iTunes, because I'm a big geek.

Part of TiVo's raison d'etre is to allow you to rate TV shows, from three thumbs down to three thumbs up, and then, based on your ratings of the TV shows you've seen, suggest other TV shows you haven't seen that you might like, even going so far as to automatically record them when they air. And the new version of the TiVo software uses, as a portion of the algorithm involved in figuring out which shows you might like, data on what shows other TiVo users liked. Of course, this means that when my TiVo keeps recording something I don't particularly want to see, such as the 6:30 P.M. rerun of "MAD TV" on TNN, it's no longer the TiVo's fault, it's the fault of some other person, probably in Minnesota. (Not that I object to "MAD TV" per se, the main problem is that something on TNN would have to be really compelling for me to be able to ignore that stupid black bar at the bottom of the screen that continuously displays the title of the show.)

Where I'm going with this is that it should be possible for iTunes to do the same thing, something like, "Oh, you seem to enjoy later period Beatles better than early Beatles, and you also like the music of They Might Be Giants. Here, why don't I download this new song by this new band that I think you might like?" However, this would require wildly unprecedented levels of cooperation and trust on the part of the record companies, so it's probably never going to happen. Oh, well, guess I'll never find out about new music, because I never listen to the radio (see below).