Originally Posted by SATCHMO

Pandora internet radio was actually created in this very manner. They created what they called The Music Genome Project where they essentially mapped out musical criteria of ALL music, (well not all obviously, but when you consider how inclusive they have been combined with how tedious the work must be...). They essentially used it to create an algorhythm that allows listeners to create stations based on individual taste. I havent been able to find anything that actually illustrates this, but I remember before Pandora was up and running the site with the interactive "phylogeny" was available to mess around with. It was pretty amazing. Maybe someone can find it.