Ted Avery

Anyone who pays the slightest amount of attention to Web 2.0 services and websites out there probably knows about the unique social network Last.fm that revolves entirely around the music you are into, as well as the music you have yet to discover. It’s been a site I’ve always known about but never really paid much attention to. I saw it as a feeble attempt to compete with MySpace which, although losing ground to Facebook as an overall social network, still maintains a strong lead in music social networking online.

Then I actually signed up and learned how powerful it truly is.

The strongest feature of Last.fm for me is the music recommendations. Everyone has a certain friend who always recommends great music to them. That certain friend recommends great music because he or she has the same musical tastes as you. You probably have a lot of favorite artists in common, so you trust that friend’s judgement of music. Now take that same kind of recommendation and amplify it to thousands of users around the world to get the best recommendations possible. Your entire music library is compared to thousands of other users to determine exactly what people who like your music are also listening to.

The first thing you need to do is let Last.fm learn about your music library by downloading the Last.fm software which works seamlessly with your favorite media players and iPods to scan all your music and “Scrobble” your tracks to the Last.fm website each time you play a song. This allows Last.fm as well as your friends to know how often you are listening to which tracks to get a better idea of your tastes. I also installed a Scrobbler application on my iPhone through the Cydia installer, so I am now basically broadcasting everything I ever listen to all the time. You can also share with your friends what you are listening to through the site, via a Facebook application, or through a funky widget as seen to the side of this paragraph! Time for some recommendations!

Each time you load the Last.fm homepage, you will be recommended a new set of artists. Under each artist that is recommended, you will see the names of artists you already listen to that were used to make the recommendation to you. Every time you add friends or view other profiles, your musical compatibility with that person is rated based on how many similar artists you have. These features make it very easy to discover great new music and people with similar tastes.

Another cool thing about Last.fm is how every individual element of music has its own page. For example, one single song such as Kanye West’s Flashing Lights has one page with an audio preview of the song, lyrics, links to videos, related albums, and a wall where people can leave comments. Discussion can revolve around any element of music whether it be a song, an artist, an event, or an album.

Although the website is great for music discovery, it’s not the best for actually listening to the music. Most of the music isn’t voluntarily posted by the artists, so the site only has access to 30 second previews used in online MP3 stores. I recommend listening alongside with MySpace when browsing the site. Find an artist that has been recommend, then do a quick Google search for their MySpace to listen to some full tracks.

If you end up getting an account, feel free to add me and we’ll see how musically compatible we are!