In Everything in its Right Place, Hannah Donovan discusses the time and effort involved in real-time web services like Twitter and Facebook.
A former designer at Last.fm, Donovan argues in favor of slower services like her new project This Is My Jam. Donovan and her partner Matthew Ogle designed the service to make consuming new music possible without devoting unreasonable amounts of time to the task.
By highlighting just one favorite track per week it saves the user from trying to sift through pages of listening suggestions. Donovan shows that just 17 songs can yield an hour of new music and following 119 people on This Is My Jam would provide about one our of new music per day.
I always find it a struggle to listen to all the new music I’m exposed to on a daily basis. Although some of my friends are absolutely prolific in their listening habits (cough, Grindthieves) I think those individuals are rare. I would have to agree that Donovan makes a great point about real-time consumption and the need for slower services depending on the topic.
If you feel overwhelmed by all the new music flying by on Twitter and Facebook you might want to give This Is My Jam a try. Oh, by the way, this is my current favorite jam.