Journal

Last.fm

Posted on February 8th, 2006, in the small hours

I signed up to last.fm a few days ago. For those who haven't heard of it, last.fm is an internet radio website. You type in bands you like and the site plays you other bands that people who like your original selection also like.

There are some downsides: it's a bit annoying that Radiohead and the Beatles come up for everything (much as I like both); it's also annoying that you can't differentiate between albums (I keep wanting to protest things like "I don't like anything they did after Definitely Maybe"). But the downsides are substantially outweighed.

The particular strength of last.fm - beyond the not inconsequential matter of free music - is the social networking side of things. The site operates on user recommendations and there's a community, journals, tags, groups and a friends system. It also keeps track of everything you listen to and generates statistics, which can only be a happy thing. (Stand by for a feed of my weekly top 10 artists on this site as soon as there's enough data!)

You have to download software to get started, but it's fairly painless, and unlike Pandora you don't have to pretend you come from Beverly Hills to sign up.

If anyone I know reads this and is signed up, let me know your username and I'll add you as a friend. I'm chrisjuby.