Thursday, June 28, 2007

Last.FM (http://www.last.fm)

What the heck is it?

-Service that keeps track of music you listen to, and then produces a large number of personalized features.

-Founded in 2002, over 15 million active users. Bought by CBS on May 30th, 2007.

-How does it work?
--Install the plug-in to your music player (iTunes, WinAmp, etc.) or listen to any of the artists on their site
--Last.FM then “scrobbles,” or logs the music playing to your account as its being listened to.
--You can influence how the songs are logged by adding tags or choosing between “love” and “ban”


What is the site for, generally?

-Discovering new music, learning about the “old”
--The music page has top artists, top tracks, a “hype list” (featuring artists who’ve experienced huge upswings of play), and free (legal) downloads
--Each artist page contains:
---30 second samples of tracks
---radio station of songs by similar artists, based on users’ listening habits (unlike Pandora)
---a list of those artists
---a picture and bio (if available)
---tags
---profiles of top listeners
---groups
---user journals that reference the band
---shoutbox
--Dashboard page contains:
---links to bands that Last.FM calculates you’ll like
---a radio station of songs based on your overall listening habits

-Participating in a community of listeners (through “Users” tab)
--Friends
---Find friends
----Browse users
----Get friends by importing e-mail contacts via Google, Hotmail, AOL, or MSN or inviting people
---Recommend music to friends, get recommendations
----In real time, while scrobbling
---Listen to your friend’s radio stations
--Groups
---A way for people to get together for any reason (similar taste, geographic location, real-life friends, etc.)
---Search for groups, make one
---Group charts created by an aggregate of all group members’ scrobbling habits
---Group journal, forums for discussion
--Neighbours
---Neighbours are users who listened to a similar collection of music


How could it help promote a teen music collection to the Internet Community?

-Teen departments can build a Last.FM profile by letting their music players scrobble MP3 collections at random.

-Widgets
--Personal radio
---Songs from top scrobbled artists
---Also group playlists
--Playlist
---Build from songs collected from artist pages
--Album quilt
---Rotating cover art of top albums
--Charts
---Recent tracks as well as top tracks or artists


How can it help connect teens to new music (aka listener’s advisory)?

-Browse around artist pages

-Build friends amongst teens, see what they’re interested in, and use the recommendation system to give them direct recommendations in their profiles.

-Create a group for your library teens.
--Share recommendations amongst the group
--Chat


How can it be integrated with other services?

-Programming
--Group scrobbling
--Help build Last.FM artist pages
---Groups made out of other programming (Garageband, “Instant Recordings,” etc.)
---Local bands & artists
---National bands
---Pages can be edited by anyone

2 comments:

Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh - Teens said...

This is a great idea! I was just listening to my internet radio (pandora, though) while reading this post, wondering what some good tie-ins for my upcomming Teen Music Discussion group could be. I think I'll try this out, see if it flys!

- corey w.
CLP Teens, PGH.

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