Many of the songs we hear have been vetted by an online panel. We are all depressingly predictable, writes Haydn Shaughnessy

Paul McCartney got it right, of course. People never get tired of old-fashioned love songs, even when they are silly. Thanks to the internet, though, major music companies and record labels are quietly ensuring they don't have to turn to old rockers such as Macca to find out what is going to be a hit. Connectivity is making creativity predictable.

This factor lies behind the recent purchase by global image supplier Getty Images of art.com. Love songs and art. Are the two really related? Despite what everybody might think, that the web is the place where the new buzz around potential hit songs happens, the truth about success is more prosaic and more fascinating.

Popscores is a UK-based service that tracks the affections of fans for bands, singers and songs. Based on internet surveys of music fans it provides a monthly score of who is slipping or rising in their affections.

That, though, is only half the story.

After years of accumulating data, the people behind Popscores have also accumulated a huge group of people to provide views on what's hot. "We have a panel of 150,000 and they get to test new music from major artists," says Peter Ruppert, chief executive of Popscores. Ruppert's company routinely gives its panel access to previews of songs long before they are released. The panel, built up over a decade, streams the music to the desktop computer and gives it the thumbs up or thumbs down.

And if the panel doesn't like what they hear? "We are testing whether the song connects with either a niche audience or a broad audience and an artist will have plenty of material available. There is no shortage of songs for artists. I mean, they come with plenty of material so this research helps the record label decide which 12 or so tracks to put on an album," says Ruppert. Combined with data on who is gaining or losing favour with fans, the ability created by the internet to deliver such large-scale research is making the hit song a predictable commodity.

Ruppert is careful to point out that his research can't tell you what notes, melodies, harmonies etc that you need to put into a song to make it successful, though even here there are now enough clues.

You keep the message really simple, avoid overt politics or covert messages, and you mention love often because good old-fashioned love songs are still the ones that make emotional connections with audiences. In fact, by now it is possible to define the popular song format as a form of love ritual.

What then of this unpredictable new creative world that we believe the internet to be? In the music business, large-scale statistical studies have now taken over from focus groups to make creativity as low risk as possible.And it's not only record labels that are using the internet panel. When selecting music to associate with a brand for an ad campaign, advertising agencies also go for what is tried and tested by Popscores.

Which bands rely on testing their material with so many people before risking a release? Ruppert demurs, but says he has just finished working with a major Irish artist and gives a strong impression of it being standard practice across the industry. The truth is the new connectedness gives marketers unprecedented access to information about our tastes, values and requirements. While the marketing profession puzzles over how to advertise selectively to different market segments, companies who sell successfully online have the equivalent of Ruppert's panel.

Getty Images is the powerhouse in global imagery. Earlier this year Getty bought Scoopt, a website that freelance and amateur photographers used to sell their work. Earlier this month they bought art.com, which sells reproductions of artworks through the internet.

Its particular line of business is turning images worth hundreds and thousands of dollars in their original to images selling at $60 in reproduction. Getty snapped up art.com for $200 million despite it having yet to turn a profit. It may sound like another internet bubble, but the real source of art.com's attractiveness is simple to see.

Art.com and its customers may not have known a great deal about art, but the company by now knows what people like. They have been busy creating a profile of the who, where and what of low-cost art purchases. Getty, meanwhile, has amassed an image bank of some millions of images, many of which would look great on a student's wall or in a new home.

At the root of these developments is the depressing probability that we are all entirely predictable and it's only a matter of time before the marketers work us out. On the upside, if the time you have available for cultural consumption is limited then why not get it right, first time, every time?

www.popscores.com, www.scoopt.com, www.art.com