Last.fm

I tried out audioscrobbler last year and found it really interesting, but not sticky.

The idea is that you upload your iTunes xml file to audioscrobbler and they analyze what you listen to and recommend new stuff you should like.

That approach works pretty well at Amazon and we use it to find new music there all the time.

But audioscrobbler was missing something.

Earlier this year, they added a web front end called last.fm on top of audioscrobbler. 

I've had it on my "to do list" for months to check out last.fm and I finally got around to doing it this weekend.

So far, I like it.

Here is my last.fm page.  You can see what I've been listening to.

You can also see my neighbors, who are people who like the same kind of music I do.

I don't think I know any of these people, but I've checked out their last.fm pages and they do indeed like the same kind of music I like.

I could think of so many things I would love to do with this list of like minded music fans. 

For example, how about the band that is most listened to among my neighbors that I haven't listened to?

Maybe that's possible in last.fm but I haven't found it.

I know a lot of people like Pandora.

I signed up for it during the summer and tried it out. It didn't do it for me.  I don't want a computer recommending music for me.  I want people doing it.  As Ross Mayfield said at the Web 2.0 conference, "Web 2.0 is about people".  I totally agree.  That's what turns me on about last.fm.

The one thing I really wish for is a Rhapsody agent for audioscrobller/last.fm.  I listen to as much or more Rhapsody as iTunes.  And it's usually the new music that I am discovering that happens on Rhapsody.  As long as last.fm is missing my Rhapsody listens, it won't be a true representation of what I am listening to right now.

But I am still into last.fm and am going to play around with it some more.

I've incorporated a link to my last.fm page on My Music Links about halfway down the left sidebar on this blog.

It would be great if they had a "badge" like Flickr where I could showcase my most recent listens.

If you listen to a lot of music on your computer, give last.fm a try.  You might like it as much as I do.

Comments

[Ted]

Fred,

There is a RSS feed for your top 10 songs. So far I have not been able to find one for your top 10 groups of the week, something I think would be useful.

Obviously from a statistical perspective, it is very interesting that once you get around 6000+ logged there is not much deviation from your overall totals, hence the reason I think it would be cool to have a weekly artist feed.

I am not sure about the PC, but the iScobbler plugin will pull the iPod listens Rhapsody... perhaps that is later down the road.

Glad you are using this.

Also I think it would be more useful if they promoted more interactiveness. So far you can add friends and send messages and listen to representative radios, but I would like to be able to chat and also "control" my own radio. Also I wish you could add things on to the site a la typepad. But all and all a great site.

Here's mine: http://www.last.fm/user/aicvisa/

[Jon]

There are a pile of Web Services in BETA right now: http://www.audioscrobbler.net/data/webservices/

[rob]

Fred -

Have you seen the new "Just for you" beta on iTunes that is, in essence, doing the same thing as audioscrobbler? With their large sample size to match purchases to recommendations I think that it may be a better engine....

rob

[Fred Oliveira]

Actually the new web service layer for last.fm allows for a lot of functionality. If you're looking spefically for the last 10 tracks, you can use this rss feed:

Recent tracks

And if you want (like Ted suggested) to have a feed for the top weekly artist chart for your profile, you can use this one:

Weekly artist chart

Luckily people are starting to wake up to the fact that last.fm is seriously better than most competition. I still remember talking about this both on techcrunch and my own site and getting emails with comments of disbelief.

[spi]

One thing last.fm has going for it is how many plugins they have available. The protocol is published so anyone can write a plugin. It is just that your application has to support plugins and someone has to have the ambition to make the plugin.

Another interesting thing people are doing with last.fm is using the data in stand alone music players. amaroK(available on linux) uses the database to suggest songs similar to the one you are currently playing. It can even make a dynamic playlist(simliar to iTunes party shuffle) based on those suggestions.

Alot of interesting stuff is in last.fm's future. Not to mention the radio is really good.