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Said.fm’s first press release has attracted some great press mentions and articles, including the following:

“Results of Said.fm’s suggestions are impressive, to say the least. I’ve found some truly great items on Said.fm that I’d likely have missed in the jumble that the iTunes Store has become.” Brad McCarty, The Next Web, read the full article.

“…a site like Said.fm is not only interesting – it is outright necessary.” Roger H, Killer Startups, read the full article.

Joshua Brustein wrote an article for The New York Times Bits Blog on Radio for the YouTube Era, where Said.fm gets a mention, read the article here.

Why is Said.fm a good filter?

The internet with its profusely capacious choice reflects both the beauty and the frustration with the beast. How do you make your choices about what you will consume over the web? What to read, what to watch, what to listen to…

I read an interesting article on this recently by Doctorow who provocated that when you have such an abundance of choice how do you choose what goes in your playlist, which experts to follow on Twitter and what books to read. When the traditional boundaries of geography and income disappear in regards to what you can choose then it can become an overwhelming opportunity.

Here at Said.fm we’re building our start-up whilst being mindful of this internet problem of choice. There are audio programmes out there that are of poor quality (in terms of sound, editing or content) however, there are many programmes which are just downright awesome. So, we have chosen to put blood, sweat and tears into putting these downright awesome programmes in the limelight for you to listen to and discover. It’s not a search engine for podcasts, it’s not a directory, it’s not an aggregator but it’s a place where you can come and press the big green play button with re-assurance that a brilliant programme will be heard.

A trusted channel

But to give you an insight into why said.fm is a good filter or a trusted channel I would like to share how and why we cultivated an approach that is gaining momentum for us.

Machines and algorithms are good for processing data and streamling processes, however it’s people that make the best recommendations. If we’re honest (and why wouldn’t we be?) we only came to this realisation many months into starting Said.fm. Initially we were completely engrossed in the technical possibilities of the Said.fm experiment and worked ourselves into a dizzying frenzy of machine learning algorithms to make topic relevant recommendations.

Once we had the aha! moment we changed our approach and decided to widen the team by enlisting curators. Our curators help filter out the noise and make good audio recommendations (both channels and programmes). They are well placed in doing this as they are keen listeners, story tellers and great programme makers.

So, now we do have some machine learning algorithms at play but more appropriately to make semantic connections between curator’s recommendations.

Ultimately, we hope our recommendations, opinions and carefully nurtured technique will make hitting the play button and listening an easy choice.

Today we’ve launched a new version of Said.fm, which you can consider a little Christmas gift from us! We’ve got oft-requested new features, a new logo and a new look website, all with an aim to make the Said.fm experience that much happier for you.

Take your favourite audio with you:

Now you can create your own collection of favourite programs and curations for syncing to your iPhone, iPod or other mobile device so that you can listen on the go. Commuters: we’ve just made your journey to work a little easier to fill with good listening.

Sign-in with Twitter:

We’ve used Twitter as our first sign-in method: you don’t have to spend time creating yet another website profile and it allows for one-click logins. Neat! Once you’ve signed-in, you’ll be able to create your own audio queue and see which items you’ve already added and synced to your mobile device.

New design:

Complete with our new logo is a new design for the website. We hope it’s a little easier to use and just a tiny bit prettier too ;o)

Take a look and let us know…

Hit-up said.fm and try it out. We’re keen to hear feedback – comment here.

This is probably one of the most difficult blog articles I’ve written on Said.fm’s blog so here goes…

Firstly I would like to say a BIG THANKYOU to all the great listeners and people who’ve supported and helped us build Said.fm. We’ve been trying to chat with as many users as possible to get feedback and we’re always delighted about how nice our users are. This doesn’t mean you haven’t told us what you hate about what we’re building – you have!… but it’s always been constructive criticism that we’re taking on board.

Secondly, and you may have sensed this part coming after my opening sentences, we have decided to wind down the Said.fm service. This was not an easy decision but after taking stock of many things – analytics, what our listeners have told us and the length of time we’ve spent nurturing this startup we felt the time is right to do this. Don’t worry, your personal feeds and collections will remain in tact for another month so you can catch up on your Said.fm listening.

Having said this we are not dissapearing, Abdel and I have learnt a huge amount about this space and about doing a startup… we’re taking all that learning and putting it into another venture, details of which will be revealed soon. It’s been a rollercoaster journey and one of the most amazing things to come out of it for us is to gain a brilliant editorial team. We went from artificial intelligence to working with real people – wow!… on a web startup!

No one said it was going to be easy but it’s defintely been a lot of fun 🙂

Thanks for listening!