"The New Tastemakers" from the New York Times isn't new. Peer recommendations started with the rise of the Internet over ten years ago with various music recommendation and playlist exchange services. Music discovery was a critical part of how the original Napster was used and still drives P2P now.

The article covers many of the ways music recommendations are increasingly coming not from the major labels and radio stations, but from other people thanks to technology. Peer recommendations are starting to become an important part of music purchases and are even being used by some traditional distributors like Clear Channel.

The article profiles Pandora.com's Music Genome Project, as well as personal Internet broadcast services where you can play and publish your playlists. What was most interesting is that 10 percent of the people who tune in to a Pandora station make a purchase at iTunes or Amazon. That's powerful marketing.