Anthony Volodkin is the 23 years old founder of The Hype Machine, A site he started back in 2005 during his sophomore year at Hunter College studying computer science on a full scholarship.
Volodkin's parents emigrated from Moscow to Brooklyn's Sheepshead Bay when he was 12
He started up the site when he realised he no longer trusted magazines or radio to recommend him great new music, so decided to automate the music discovery process by indexing the world’s best music blogs and posting the most popular content to his site.
The Hype Machine is a website which aggregates the most popular songs on mp3 blogs, allowing users to discover new music every day.
Anthony who had been working part-time as an IT Consultant, decided to pour his energy into something that he said "left a lasting mark".
The site currently gets 1.5 million visitors per month from all over the world and we have over 100,000 registered users.
In January 2010, The Hype Machine partnered with SoundCloud, allowing labels to provide music bloggers with new and pre-released tracks. The Hype Machine also revealed plans to release an iPhone application
It has been profiled by CNN, Wired, and The Guardian. It was named to The Guardian's list of 100 essential websites of 2009, one of four music-oriented sites to receive mention.
Fred Wilson called the site "the best thing to happen to music since the Rolling Stones" and the "Technorati for music".
Gawker Media founder Nick Denton called the site "the future of all media".The site has been criticized for providing internet users with easier access to free music.
