MentorFM // the next soundtrack to your life

What is MenforFM

Preface

Do you remember the good old radio of your grandfather? It was pretty easy to use: you just had to switch it on and enjoy the music.

Mentor.FM is an attempt to keep that simple approach but at the same time powering the radio with new technologies.

History and background

The very first version of this radio came out for a short period in 2011, as an academic research experiment in the Music Recommender Systems field carried on by its author, Eugenio Tacchini.

Eugenio Tacchini is a software developer, entrepreneur, College lecturer and researcher; he got a Ph.D. in Computer Science studying Serendipity in Music Recommender Systems and he has been a visiting scholar at the University of California, Berkeley and at the Freie Universitat Berlin.

In November 2013, after months of research and development and the production of a patent-pending technology, Mentor.FM is out again as a real service available in 221 countries, to bring the music listening experience to a new level.

NOW

Technically, Mentor.FM is a conversational music curator; think about it as your Music Mentor, like having a personal DJ who knows you and play not only the music you like NOW but also the music you still don't know and your are going to like IN THE FUTURE.

Today there is so much music available that the problem is what to listen; we weren't satisfied with all the existing discovery/recommendation services, which tended to be too predictable and monothematic and needed too much user direct input. So we put all our passion for music and technology and our academic research experience to build a new product from scratch; simple, effective and powerful.

THE FUTURE

We think that Mentor.FM already offers a unique listening experience; our to-do list, however, is impressive: we really want to provide the next generation of Automated Music Curators and we already know exactly where to go to achieve our goal.

If you are a data scientist or a UX/UI specialist and you are interested in working with us, send a CV to info@mentor.fm, we evaluate CVs coming from exceptionally talented people.

USAGE

The usage is very simple: you login into the radio using your Facebook account and wait for the music to start. One click, that's all. Mentor.fm will work and play music based on your Facebook profile and other information coming from Deezer, Last.FM, 7digital, The Echo Nest, Google and combining everything using our own powerful algorithm. That's the NORMAL MODE and you are going to immediately like the vast majority of the music played.

There is an alternative mode: the SURPRISE ME! mode: in this case the radio CAN propose songs apparently far from your current taste, touching music lands you usually don't explore. We think that people are often too stick to their musical taste so we have developed a method to propose new music, something that can help you discovering that jazz (or drum 'n' bass!) is not that bad, after all. This innovative method is still in beta and on ongoing development; we are going to release new improvements on a monthly basis and our adaptive engine also improves by itself during time. Music tastes are so fascinating and at the same time so complex that it takes time to understand them; think about a teacher who can teach better if he knows well his students and their talents.

Songs played by Mentor.FM are streamed by our music partner
The first time you use Mentor.FM you have to link your Mentor.FM account to your Deezer account, just click on "Link your Deezer account", you have to do it just once.
If you don't have a Deezer account follow the instructions and you can can get one in a few seconds just by logging-in into Deezer with your Facebook account.

FAQs

1) Do the LIKE/DISLIKE affect the music played by Mentor.FM?
Sure, using the LIKE/DISLIKE buttons you teach the radio your taste, the more you use it, the better the radio works. Don't think too much about the consequences of a LIKE/DISLIKE, depending on various factors Mentor.FM will interpret your LIKE/DISLIKE in the right way, don't worry.

2) Is it possible to choose the song?
No, this is not a juke box. Sometimes you need a juke box, sometimes you just need a radio. Mentor.fm is for the latter situation, just turn it on and enjoy the music. The idea is that you almost don't need the keyboard to use Mentor.FM.

3) Is this legal?
Yes. Mentor.FM streams songs provided by established music provider companies such as deezer.com.

4) Is this free?
At the moment, yes. In the future we might introduce a commercial / freemium service.

5) Is there an iOS/Android Mentor.FM app?
Yes:

6) In which countries is the service available?
The list is available here.

7) Is it possible to use Mentor.FM without a Facebook account?
No, at the moment Facebook is the only way to register and login to Mentor.FM. The preferences used to create a preliminary and first music profile are extracted from Facebook, Last.FM and Deezer and then enriched during the time by the user's behaviour.
If you are worried about the information we extract from your Facebook profile, please consider that:
- WE CAN'T READ YOUR FACEBOOK WALL
- WE CAN'T READ YOUR FACEBOOK PRIVATE MESSAGES
In general, we can just access the information you agree to share with us when you authorize the Mentor.FM application.
Also, we cant't post on your wall without your explicit permission.
If you have any questions about Facebook registration, please contact us using the feedback button on your left, someone will reply to you very quickly :)

8) The radio freezes at "Checking your Deezer account" or "Loading playlist"
To use Mentor.FM, you need Adobe Flash installed; most probably you have it without knowing (here you can check your installation).
Some users, however, are experiencing this problem even if they have Flash installed. The first thing you can try is visiting www.deezer.com and then come back here and reload the page, this tells your browser that the cookies coming from deezer.com are "safe". Another thing you can try is: delete the Deezer cookies stored in your browser (here you can find instructions for Chrome, or you can contact us using the feedback button on your left), visit www.deezer.com and then reload this page. You have to do it just once. If you can't solve the problem please contact us. Please also check that your browser accepts Third-Party Cookies.

CREDITS

The Mentor.FM Web site has been developed by Eugenio Tacchini (Recommendation algorithms, back-end) and Simone Magnaschi (front-end). The Android app has been developed by GeDInfo.

Songs played by Mentor.FM are streamed by our music partner

We would like to say thank you to:

• Prof. Ernesto Damiani
• All the people of the Berkeley Laboratory for Automation Science and Engineering
• Last.FM and The Echo Nest for providing some of the APIs we used.
• Oscar Celma
• CubaGallery for the original radio picture.
• argya for the original Cup of Tea picture.
• Berkeley, Berlin, Commodore and The Prodigy for the inspiration.

CONTACTS

For any request or feedback, this is the only email address to use: info@mentor.fm

You can also use the feedback button you find on the left side of the site.

TERMS OF SERVICE AND PRIVACY

Mentor.FM is a personalized music radio service.

WHO CAN USE MENTOR.FM

To use Mentor.FM you must be over the legal age of majority and you must be in one of the 180+ countries (see the list at the end of this document) where the service si legally provided. People under the legal age of majority and people who are outside of those countries cannot use this service.

RULES OF USE

The music stream is limited to a strictly private use within a family scope and is provided by Deezer.com; if you create a new Deezer account through Mentor.FM you also implicitly agree to Deezer's Terms of Service and to Deezer's Privacy Policy, if you already have a Deezer account while registering to Mentor.FM, you still have to agree to Deezer's Terms of Service and to Deezer's Privacy Policy to use Mentor.FM

When using our Service, you agree that you will not violate any provision of law in force in the European Union or in any other political entity having jurisdiction over this service. You also agree that you will not hack, crack, phish, SQL inject, or otherwise interfere with the integrity of the computer systems of our site, service, or users. You also agree that you will not run any bots or other software to aggregate, reproduce, or browse our databases. You also agree that you will not reverse engineer our site, software, or other material, or otherwise engage in any conduct that we consider to be undesirable.

NO WARRANTY

This service is provided "as is", without any warranties, expressed or implied, and hereby disclaims and negates all other warranties, including without limitation, implied warranties or conditions of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, or non-infringement of intellectual property or other violation of rights.

Mentor.FM does not warrant or make any representations concerning the accuracy, likely results, or reliability of the use of the materials/content/recommendation provided or otherwise relating to such materials or on any sites linked to Mentor.FM.

Mentor.FM uses or links external services (including but not limited to: Facebook, Deezer, YouTube and 7digital); those services are not controlled in any way by us; you agree that we have no liability towards you for damage caused by these or other third party services, whether or not such damage is wholly, partly, or not caused at all by the use of our service.

COPYRIGHT AND PATENTS

Mentor.FM has been conceived, developed and copyrighted by Eugenio Tacchini. One of the techniques used by Mentor.FM to provide music recommendations is also a patent-pending technology.

PRIVACY

When you register and use Mentor.FM we collect some personal information about you: in particular we can collect some of your Facebook profile information you agree to give us (public profile, friend list, email address, birthday and likes), some of your Deezer profile information you agree to give us (first and last name, listening logs and others), your Last.FM listening logs (if you decide to import your Last.FM account), the log related to your Mentor.FM activity and your IP. We currently use this information to provide better music recommendations and to do research activity; we can use this information in any feature which may in the future become available on Mentor.FM.

We can use your email address to send you messages related to the Mentor.FM service, you can unsubscribe the newsletter at any time.

We are not responsible for the privacy policy adopted by external services that Mentor.FM uses or links (including but not limited to: Facebook, Deezer, YouTube and 7digital); those services are not controlled in any way by us.

We use cookies and we may use third party services which utilize their own cookies.

We may need to share your information with third parties which assist us in providing and improving the service, including but not limited to web hosts. You agree to grant to those third parties the same authorization you grant to us. We are not responsible for the actions of these third parties; you agree that, in case they commit any tort against you, you must take legal actions against them directly.

In addition to what we state here, please check additional details about our privacy policy here (an Italian version is also available)

If you want to be removed from our service just write a request to: info at mentor dot fm.

COUNTRIES

Mentor.FM is available in all the countries where Deezer is available:

COUNTRIES

Here is the list of 180+ countries where Mentor.FM is available.

MENTOR.FM ON FACEBOOK

MENTOR.FM ON TWITTER

Country Limitation

Hi! We believe that you are in UNITED STATES. Unfortunately, UNITED STATES is not one of the 200+ countries where Mentor.FM is available. If you believe we have made a mistake, please let us know using the feedback button on your left.

You can anyway close this window and register to the service, but it won't work properly; you can also discover what is Mentor.FM (watching the intro video and reading something about this service).

If you register to the service, we will let you know via email when Mentor.FM will be available in your country.

COUNTRIES

Here is the list of 200+ countries where Mentor.FM is available. Please note that at the moment Mentor.FM is NOT available in U.S.A.