Firefly Technology Will Take Wing in a New Call-Your-Own-Tune Web Site

Launch, the Santa Monica company that produces a music-oriented CD-ROM magazine by the same name, will unveil a new Web site Tuesday that uses Firefly technology to help users find bands, concerts and other personally tailored music news.

The site, called myLaunch (https://www.mylaunch.com), is the direct descendant of Firefly’s original Web site, which used music content to show off the capabilities of its collaborative filtering technology. This spring, Cambridge, Mass.-based Firefly re-christened the site Bignote (https://www.bignote.com) when it decided to focus on selling its core software.

Launch disclosed last week that it purchased Bignote early this summer for an undisclosed sum. The two companies--along with Santa Monica-based Sequoia Softworks--have been working together to build myLaunch.

Collaborative filtering will allow myLaunch to present a personalized site for each user, said Launch President Bob Roback. Visitors will be asked about their own music preferences, and the Web site will keep track of their musical tastes as they roam online. Then each user’s profile will be compared with everyone else’s profile to further customize each visit to the site.

“It looks for other people who also like the things that you do and dislike the things that you dislike,” Roback explained. “Then it compares your record collection to their record collections and asks, ‘What else is out there that you haven’t heard about?’ It’s the ultimate word-of-mouth.”

MyLaunch will draw on articles, performances and interviews with artists culled from back issues of the 2 1/2-year-old CD-ROM magazine, and a cadre of freelance writers has prepared bios of 1,000 artists, Roback said.