Last.fm

http://www.last.fm/

Hardly new or anything, but I figured I’d do a little write up on it. Need to get some more techno-nerdy posts up here. So hey, why not.

I’ve been using last.fm for awhile now (although, I just installed it on my computer out here in DC).

last.fm is a music social network blended with a radio station. I originally found last.fm when I was looking for a way to automatically keep a list of songs I’m listening to on my facebook profile. After looking a little bit on what it would take to write a Windows Media Player (my player of choice, albeit I really didn’t evaluate many alternatives).   You create an account with last.fm and then install their software. When you install the software it scans to see what players you have installed and then will install “Scrobbler” plugin for those players. The Scrobbler posts the songs you are listening to up to the last.fm site. You can then see the listing of songs you’re listening to. Here’s my profile: http://www.last.fm/user/geeksteve.  If you were really obsessive you can even subscribe to an RSS feed with of what i’m currently listening too. A little less on the stalker side of things you can add a widget to you site or blog. For my blog, I decided to go with publishing the list of Recently Listen Tracks.
(I’m not sure on how to get that info the widgets sidebar on wordpress yet though…)
EDIT: Seems wordpress.com for security won’t allow javascript, embed, or flash in posts. Although that means I can’t host the fun last.fm widget, I do like knowing that I won’t be causing any cross-site-scripting vunerabilities. Usibility comes at the price of security after all . Instead I’ve just hooked into the RSS feed using the wordpress supplied widget. Not as pretty, but it works.

On my facebook page (mainly because it never auto-refreshes), I chose to go with the Weekly Top Tracks. The facebook app is called What I’m Listening To and published out pretty much the same information that you get with the site/blog widget. The only downside (and I think this is a facebook performance imposed constraint) is that the copy on the profile isn’t updated. Every so often I go into the settings for the app and just click save to force a refresh on the profile.

Anyway, back to the last.fm app. Besides the ability to just keep a tally on what you’re listening to, it takes that information and allows you to

1. create a radio station with just the music you like.
2. find people who are into the same type of music you are into
3. notify you when artist you like are having a show/event/gig near you

the last big feature (probably the biggest) is that you can stream music from their player/app. Back in MI (because I didn’t have a lot of ripped music on my computer) I was using it pretty extensively. I would just enter in “emo” or “alternative” and bingo-bango I was set with hours and hours of music I like.

If you have a Windows Mobile device and a Last.fm profile, you can grab the software from the Last.fm Mobile Forum or download a version direct from here:

Last.fm Mobile for Pocket PC (v1.4)
Last.fm Mobile for Smartphone (v1.1)

(Sadly, I have a crackberry now, so I can’t enjoy said app)

Sidenote:

I think that’ll do for a post. I’m trying to stick with my 1 post minium a week. Its been tough. But then again, would I have really needed to make a goal if it wasn’t going to be a challenge?