Let the Machine do the Listening to your music - Machine Listening API from The Echo Nest

TechCrunch - First “Machine Listening” API Flies From The Echo Nest

"“Machine Listening” is the idea that computers can be programmed to interpret audio signals the same way humans do. This means that they can tell when a song belongs to the blues genre rather than techno. And they can detect musical characteristics like tempos, transition types, and harmonies.

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The Echo Nest is a company that’s bringing machine listening to Web 2.0. It was founded by two MIT PhD students and is supported by a government grant. Today, the company releases the first of several “Musical Brain” APIs intended to improve three main aspects of music-related web services: search, recommendations, and interactivity.

The first API, which focuses on signature analysis and ...

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The Echo Nest will lend all of its APIs to non-commercial projects for free, but it will charge commercial sites with a usage fee. ..."

I am a huge sucker for API's. And I dig the through that I could use this, or future API's, to help me build some cool play lists for my Zune. Or maybe a social music recommendation app.

The API is a simple HTTP/GET/POX one (i.e. REST?) and while there are no .Net samples yet, it should be VERY easy to use from it.

Just one more thing for me to play with... :)