I have just read about this one:

http://www.moodagent.com/

which is really interesting, it is an alternative way to listen to music. Does this compete with MOTS?
Moodagent is analysing the music, but might use an alternative algorithm for it as MOTS.

I don't have experience with MOTS, but I have with Mood agent. I actually quite like the idea, but it doesn't work well. At least not with the music I have stored on my Iphone. I hope MOTS is better.

I don't see it as an alternative to MOTS, but more as an alternative to Genius : MoodAgent doesn't analyse your music, it only get informations about your song by connecting to a server and uploading "mood datas" corresponding to your songs. Which means : if the central server doesn't know your songs, they will never appear on a selection (same problem here with iTunes' Genius).

MOTS is a local algorithm which analyses your songs. It takes hours, but all songs are recognised and potentially playable by the system. That's better if you don't only have mainstream music.

beocool:

I don't have experience with MOTS, but I have with Mood agent. I actually quite like the idea, but it doesn't work well. At least not with the music I have stored on my Iphone. I hope MOTS is better.

There's always iTunes Genius, not quite as "sophisticated" as the MOTS algorithm, but I'm not sure the resulting playlist is any poorer or any less "useful"!

mbee:

if the central server doesn't know your songs, they will never appear on a selection (same problem here with iTunes' Genius)

Thank you ... I did not know that nor noticed it ... yet ... but now I know I am sure I will notice it

Another alternative is "Genius Mixes" where you get 16 pre-selected combinations of your tracks - these are where iTunes has classified recordings as "Pop", or "Classical" or "Jazz".  When Genius Mixes was launched with iTunes 9 (I think) I posted a description of how my collection had been analysed and grouped, and my surprise with the results.

Normal "Genius" usage where you select a specific song (and if it is known by iTunes, that bit I knew, I just had not connected the dots).  iTunes then makes a dynamic playlist of songs compatible with your selection, and you can play it immediately, and you can also save that list as a static list and play it again.

So my wife likes the Genius playlist I created for her from a "Madame Butterfly" seed track.

On the other hand, I have created a number of smart playlists using filters on the iTunes meta-data, and then I introduce variety by sorting the list by ascending play count so that there is an ever changing list of least frequently played tracks in categories like "opera", "jazz", "classical", "soundtracks", "60s music", etc