Last.fm – Pick of the Week
January 27, 2008
Last.fm is a service that I had used quite extensively in the past, and within the last 2 weeks came back to. I was initially on the bandwagon before the merger of Last.fm and Audioscrobbler with the Audioscrobbler half. This service basically tracked your listening habits in iTunes by means of a plugin and then allowed you to view statistics about your listening history. It was/is a free service and by itself would lend itself to the pick of the week. After Last.fm, a streaming music service, bought out Audioscrobbler, there were some issues with the scrobbling (tracking) part being left behind, and I let the service be.
A couple weeks ago I went back to check on my account and found the scrobbling had been much improved as had the Last.fm part of the service. First off the speed of the web site, while not stellar still, was much better than when the companies merged. Second, the data was updated much faster on the site so weekly charts were actually useful now. Third, the streaming of music through other people’s playlists actually worked the way it was supposed to. Finally, this last week they have made available the opportunity to stream many songs in their entirely up to three times for free. All of this makes for an appealing service, and this is a good thing because it means that people you know might actually be on the service.
Many of us have signed up for social networking sites of one form or another and found them lacking people they knew. Last.fm has gained in popularity so there is a very good chance that some of the people you know will be on the service, making the social aspects of the site much more useful and fun. In addition, if you have music fans as friends who are not on the service, it shouldn’t be difficult to get them to join with the variety of services Last.fm provides.
If you are on Last.fm, you can find my profile at http://www.last.fm/user/mizidymizark/. If you are not on the service, you can still check out my profile to get a sense of the service and what is available. If you do sign up, feel free to add me as a friend as well, I enjoy seeing what other people are listening to.
Pick of the Week is my way of highlighting cool/new services and software on the web or the Mac. A few Windows applications might sneak in from time to time, but it will be rare. You can find an archive of services and software at http://www.marktopia.net/tag/potw/.