Celebrity Music Throwdown, Part 1: Peter Gabriel and the Filter

The Filter and Peter GabrielFrom left: Martin Hopkins, co-founder and CSO of The Filter; Peter Gabriel. the Grammy award-winning artist, and David Maher Roberts, Filter’s chief executive. (Photo: Martin Klimek)

Today, a look at two celebrity-influenced startups trying to ride revolutionary changes in the media business. And you get to vote: Do these Internet companies have a chance of being successful?

First up: The Filter, backed and advised by the British singer and technology evangelist Peter Gabriel, who was in San Francisco last week promoting the company in advance of its relaunch today.

The year-old start-up, based in Bath, England, started life as yet another music recommendation service. About 200,000 users have downloaded the software, which tracks what music they listen to and purchase online, then recommends new songs or bands they might like.

The new system, which was reintroduced Tuesday in a private test, takes a more comprehensive approach. The service will now filter all online media habits – the music and movies people like, the Web videos they watch, and soon, the books they buy – and offer advice about all their entertainment and information options.

“In this age, where the curator is becoming just as important as the creator, the disc jockey becomes the life jockey,” Mr. Gabriel said. “You carry this around with you as a tool that is available 24 hours a day to help you make choices.”

Users must still download the Filter software to their desktop, where it spies on… er, digests various streams of Internet behavior (the music and videos they keep in iTunes, their streaming and browsing history, etc.). Users can also connect with their friends on the service and track their media-consuming behavior. UPDATE: The company says the download is optional but provides richer recommendations.

The company then threads that information through its algorithms to generate highly targeted and personalized recommendations – not only the songs, movies and Web videos users might like, but also what they might be in the mood for at a particular time. Each user will get a home page on the site where they will see their recommendations.

The Filter has lots of competition, of course. Amazon and Apple’s iTunes make similar recommendations very close to the potential point of sale. The Filter must also jockey for position with music-only recommendation services like the CBS-owned Last.fm.

But the company, say its founders, has the advantage of being more comprehensive and more open. Users can feed in their activities on other Web sites, like Netflix, Last.fm and the music site Imeem. And other companies can license the Filter’s recommendation engine and integrate it into their own sites.

Mr. Gabriel, who also backed We7.com, a British streaming music site, and Od2, one of the first music download services, now owned by Nokia, says he’s excited about the ways that the Web is taking a sledgehammer to the music business.

“All sorts of new life forms are emerging out of the corpse of the music industry,” he said. “Anything the old music business was looking at, they had to feel like there was going to be $100,000 in sales before they put their hand in their pocket. This should allow a lot of experimental projects.”