So following the post I wrote yesterday about my new experience with the "Web 2.0", I've decided to write about my experience with one of the new sites I've been using, Last.fm. In a nutshell, it's a personal profile on the web that tracks what you listen to, whether it be on your computer or iPod (or other portable media player), and compares your music tastes to other users'. For someone that listens to music on their computer most of the day, I find it to be pretty cool, and even enlightening.
I created a username and installed the application on my computer, and it instantly loaded up all of my previous play counts from iTunes onto my online profile. I saw that my most listened artist was John Mayer with 477 plays, and in a close second Howard Shore (I love the LOTR Soundtracks) with 373. Something else that caught my eye was that 7 out of my top 10 tracks were from the Garden State soundtrack (alright, laugh it up). Since seeing that, I've strayed away from those artists and have started listening to some of my other music, to sort of build up my online music profile. And it's been real refreshing, I guess I forgot how much other great music I have to listen to. The "Neighborhood" feature gives you an idea of what other people listen to similar music to you, and from there you can friend them or give them a shout out. The site requires a few days of listening to music before you gain entrance to a "Neighborhood", but I'm really looking forward to it because I can start to explore others' tastes. There is a lot of different artists out there, and the only real way to find out about a lot of them is from word of mouth, and this site is perfect for that.
This site also holds stats across ALL of its users, showing Coldplay as the #1 listened to artist for the week, followed by the likes of Radiohead, The Beatles, and Metallica. It'll be interesting to see what it changes to in the coming weeks, and if something like a new album release boosts an artists' ranking. And I also find it really cool that The Beatles are still in the Top 5 artists listened to for the entire week, and I doubt that they will ever die off.
There are several other really neat features that the site offers, and there are several extras that you can explore and play with on the site itself, including complex music graphs (do a google image search of "last.fm graph", you'll see what I mean). So if you don't already have one, get a username, it's a lot of fun and I promise you'll enjoy it.
3 comments:
MJ! good post, but where's the biting criticism i've come to expect from theusualetc? i love last.fm (and LOTR FTW), but there are some things about the site that irk me.
for instance, i once stumbled upon (lame social media joke not intended) a page on last.fm that showcased the free download tracks from all over the site. ever since last.fm made its beta improvements the permanent default about a week ago, i haven't been able to find the page, proving that even the improvements are not the best UI ever.
if you're into those wave graphs i showed you, you can download the buggy-but-still-useful "last.fm extra stats" program, or you can allegedly use the online-based lastgraph.aeracode.org (it never worked for me). nothing cool will show up until about a month into your use of last.fm, but it will motivate you to listen to music like mad until that glorious day.
MJ! i just showed alex your blog. i'm disappointed to see that you haven't written me my post on mcafee/norton alternatives. hurry up. also you owe me a text.
did you get varun's email? looks like there's a new blog in town. *hitches up pants, spits in the dust, walks through swinging saloon doors*
why are all three comments on this post from me? wanted: one (1) life, for katherine. STAT.
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