Re: Decibel

On Monday, March 24, 2014 at 12:58 PM, Robert Kaye said:

> [snip/]
> Decibel (our "competitor") had 3 presentations that felt very much like a 
> sales pitch by were largely devoid of actual content. I'm still not clear 
> on what their business model is and of who their customers are, if they 
> have any. But apparently graph databases are much cooler than relational 
> databases. :)
> [snip/]

I took a look at Decibel's web site (http://www.decibel.net/) which at first 
sight looks beautiful, but when I look closely the pedant in me finds lots 
to laugh about:

1. They have apparently been going about 21 months since July 2012 
(http://www.decibel.net/news/decibel-chooses-3scale/) and have 11 staff 
(http://www.decibel.net/our-team/) which equates to quite a large salary 
bill. They have a "beautiful office overlooking Brick Lane" - presumably 
another big bill. (Office powder-room 
https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@51.520918,-0.071899,3a,30y,87.45h,76.61t/data=!3m4!1e1!3m2!1sAlITt6hiWdqdMQkklzPKPA!2e0 
? Or perhaps 
https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@51.520918,-0.071899,3a,30y,139.92h,69.53t/data=!3m4!1e1!3m2!1sAlITt6hiWdqdMQkklzPKPA!2e0 
? )

2. Their favourite word is "metadata" and they try to explain what it is 
here http://www.decibel.net/blog/the-bare-bones-of-metadata/ . At the end 
they ask "Now do you understand why we’re so crazy about metadata?" Nope. 
Their explanation seemed as clear as mud to me.

3. You too can play "Find the 5 Facts" in their fascinating reading game "5 
Facts about the Economics of Various Streaming Services" 
(http://www.decibel.net/blog/5-facts-about-the-economics-of-various-streaming-services/ 
 )

4. But best of all they apparently hold "160 bits of data per track" 
(http://www.decibel.net/about/ ) - yes a whole 20 bytes - perhaps as many as 
3-4 words of English!! But the most worrying thing is the breadth of 
relationship data they are holding that MusicBrainz hasn't even dreamt  of 
yet - like the vital information about who the bass player's stylist is!!! 
(hair? clothes? who knows? who cares?) Quick, create a MusicBrainz 
Artist->Artist relationship for "Stylist" so we are not left behind!

5. They have apparently accumulated data about 15 million tracks on 1.1 
million albums by 300k artists (https://developer.decibel.net/ ) How does 
that compare to MB? 


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