boo!! also what is it with the windows phone promo?
Tag: last.fm
last.fm
people who burn $100s or even $1000s on itunes are retards. why would you pay 1.99 (and up) per song to “own it”, for severely limited definitions of owning, when you can pay 3$ per month to listen to any song you like, on any computer or smartphone? why would you put up with a clunky, user-hostile program like itunes that fails to collect interesting metadata and has no discovery mechanism to speak of, when you can use last.fm? why would you clog your storage devices with mp3s when you can stream? why would you waste space in your apartment for a CD collection when you can listen to 1000s of artists?
i am sorry last.fm if i ignored you over long stretches of time over the 7 years we have known each other. i will try to do better.
Free the Music
As of today, you can play full-length tracks and entire albums for free on the Last.fm website.
Audio Fingerprinting for Clean Metadata
another area where algorithmic insight can make a HUGE difference. expect robust fingerprinting for all the worlds data, and the appropriate de-duping and merging. a genome of all books would be interesting: what came from where?
Last.fm – Youtube Mashups
i was curious if useful mashups would emerge, looks like yes:
Last.fm meets Youtube. This mashup searches Youtube for videos of the last 10 tracks you played on Last.fm.
has last.fm jumped the shark?
last.fm used to give me great recommendations, now it gives me nirvana and 9 inch nails when i ask for bands similar to air. looks like the site is being overrun by people with horrible music tastes, alas.
Recommendations done right
i have recently started to use last.fm more frequently, again. i have had an account there since 2003, but had forgotten about it. in the meantime, they have built out an awesome service that works really well. it was a nice surprise to see that they upgraded early adopters to their version of a pro user, for free. this allows me to have my own radio station without lifting a finger, and other nice benefits.
coupled with their sane data policy, this is a clear winner. really useful and relevant unlike the overhyped silliness that is “podcasting”.
Gregor J. Rothfuss 