Songsmith is blowing up

Microsoft Research Songsmith, which grew out of the MySong project I worked on last year, has gone viral, largely because of the (intentional) over-the-top silliness of the promo video. The fact that so many people are experiencing the results of our research is blowing my mind a little bit, especially with the wide variety of responses we're seeing. There's been some praise, some good-natured poking fun, and a fair amount of irrational hatred. Many people seem to appreciate the research while mocking the promo video, which I guess is okay, though the vast majority of them would never have heard about the research if not for the exceptionally silly video.

The most pathetic response I've seen is here. Yes, Michael Arrington, world's most famous tech blogger, decided to call a researcher at MSR gay. If you're going to call us gay, at least do it like this (warning: extremely offensive). And there are many other ways to diss Songsmith that I'm totally cool with.