AutoRate your iTunes tracks

I was looking for virtual desktop software for my Mac and came across AutoRate, a program that automatically rates the songs in your iTunes library based on an algorithm that includes data on how often you skip each track, along with your playcount.

When I first installed the last.fm plugin (the scrobbler, right?), I remember thinking that I wished it would help me rate songs, and for a little while after that I listened to my tunes with a consciousness that the scrobbler was recording them. I started skipping songs — and I realized that the songs I skipped were ones I actively disliked, and that there’s much more nuance to which songs I like than simply how many times they are played. As far as I can tell, AutoRate’s algorithm only checks how many times the songs are skipped, but if it’s possible to tell at what point in the song the Next button gets pressed, that would make the algorithm even more accurate.

It’s a neat tool, one I wish I had built myself.