Lost in a world of tag clouds and numerical rankings, Guitarati set out to create a new way to help people find the music they want -- with colors. Yes, you read that right.
On its main page, Guitarati lays out a series of colorful dots. Clicking on one of these takes you to a selection of music based around that color. This color/music link-up is set by what other users set as the color they feel best represents the feeling of the song while listening to it.
Drilling down into a color, it's easy to shift between lighter and darker shades to further alter the types of music being played. Those interested in a less visceral experience can also use a drop down to select specific genres.
In terms of making the site profitable, the thought process is less outside-the-box -- it charges users money. Still, it's a somewhat unique combination of flat-fee downloading (usually 99 cents) and cheap streaming fees. A user pays 1 cent for every full length song they stream, but these cents are deducted from the purchase price of the song if they choose to buy it. Songs are all in DRM-free MP3 format with 192 Kbps encoding. Samples of all songs can be listened to for free.
Artists and labels get paid for both downloads and streaming. They can dictate the price of their music and get back 75 percent of the earnings. There are no registration fees for those who want to spread their music via Guitarati.
[Above: The colored dot collage from which you pick a mood of music you'd like to hear.]
Now for a few problems. First and foremost, there are a very limited number of songs at the moment. While I have no problem with all the artists being independent, there simply aren't enough of them. For example, there are no "black" songs, no "gray" songs. Keep in mind that the service just launched today in beta and they will add more over time -- but that seems contingent on artists' interest in the service itself.
The hardest sell to both artists and customers may be the idea itself. To many, this will simply sound too new-age to be a viable web app. The idea of "mood music" has likely been around as long as music itself, and breaking songs up this way seems logical -- it's the color/mood correlation that makes things a bit muddied. Darker and lighter shades of a color makes sense to me, but I'm not sure what constitutes an "orange" song versus a "purple" one.
Still, it is quite an interesting idea and it certainly sets itself apart from the ever-expanding online music world. A concept like this might be appealing to larger services looking at new ways to recommend music to people.
Guitarati tells us that it is self-funded at the moment.