hey y'all

don't know the form for shameless plugs but i want to recommend www.last.fm.com to everyone.

its an internet radio station that logs what you play and then gives you tunes by artists you like or should like. once you build up a profile you have your own radio playlist.

i've only been on it a week or two but i'm loving it. i know everyone here has good taste so i'm sure you'll love it too.

give it a go and let me know what you think.

That sounds rather a jolly good idea... gonna give it a whirl, thinks I. Cheers!

well before you build up a profile you listen to other people's radio so you're welcome to mine.

tom waits at the mo, jockey full of bourbon. nice

I absolutely love Last.fm already!

Such a wonderfully random playlist I've gotten already.... people, you've gotta give this site a look see!

my work here is done...

*shameless bump*

well i know theres a few spaced out people using audioscrobbler and last fm, but they've just relaunched and its now the mutts nuts.

the old site had a few technical problems and was pretty slow but the new version is great - plus loads more options for listening to new music. You can listen to genres now, so i clicked on 'electronic' and its playing me john michelle jarre - and now ulrich schnauss. nice!

click here for a look, or if you want to nose around my page, thats here.

that will be all.

That sounds great but I'm buggered if I can get it to work.

i'm there already but i'm everywhere so thanks for reminding me.

Sounds more or less like Launchcast...

It's much better though

about how long should it take for the Last.fm player to 'connect to server'?????

*confused*

not that long, maybe the sites playing up

i may now try this...

*clicks onto website*

i think since the relaunch the site has been a bit slow and has had a few teething problems - but its getting a lot of hits, and all the bugs are being ironed out.

i avoid all this by being a subscriber and paying five pounds a month. you don't have to, but i always think that if you like something you should pay for it - i say to myself 'its only a pack of fags or a couple of pints a month'. and then i think 'if i stop feeding that orphan kid in malawi i can afford fags, booze and music. result!'

how good the radio is depends on your song profile - you download an 'audioscrobbler' plugin that tracks the music you play on your computer and builds up your profile. this profile then determines the choice of songs. i've now got 6000 odd tracks logged so it always plays me something i like.

Ok, well I've signed up to it (hobbes37 if anyone's interested), but need to listen to lotsa tracks to build up my profile.
Does it just record all tracks you listen to on iTunes and then find you stuff there that you'd like?

Just signed up, pretty sweet me thinks. My username is SeanTheSellOut, by the way.

Tsk tsk, such lazy spelling of Mr Jarre's names there. I dunno.



I've been using Last.fm since Mr Pots first started this very thread, and I've got to say, the site really is looking fantastic now - plus, it now updates your listening figures constantly, as opposed to every 100 or 150 songs like it used to, so it is always up to date with your listening habits.

One other thing I have spotted is that, on the old version of the site, before you could start listening to other members' stations, you had to add your fave artists you liked to your profile, so that the site could gauge your particular likes, which initially created an uneven picture of your actual listening trends. Now, it would appear that the figures now actually only reflect those tracks you actually listen to, and have eliminated the 'added' tracks/albums from those initial profile figures. Brillopads!

I wonder if you can get an Audioscrobbler plug-in that will work with a portable MP3 player....?



Oh, um, my Last.FM profile: ShadyAdy





PS - Mr Jessop, I was quite interested to note the other day that there are apparently 58 different Last.fm members who have listened to The Proteus - the word is spreading!

Cool. I keep meaning to contact them about any recent developments.

*sees lull in work, sends email*

Snot better than my launchcast - incidentally launch.co.uk has now returned to no adverts and unlimited skips.

Audioscrobbler/Last.Fm rocks.

I bet none of you can guess my username.

There never were any adverts or limited skipping on mine

yeah, thats the beauty of it. it records all the tracks you listen to and builds up a profile. it then plays those artists, or similar artists that you should like, based on what people with a similar profile to you are listening to.

I really like this now, been listening to as much stuff as possible on the PC all day. Last FM player's great.
Cheers pots for making me addicted to yet another thing...

its just playing me 'california' by rrrrrufus. thats why i like it.

glad you like it too, seany seany sean.

I've signed up as well. As Maian, since no one else on the internet uses the name, as far as I know.

ah! It was audioscrobbler!
for the nosey.

I take my comments about Launchcast back - now I can't use the American version, which although it has limited skips and adverts has so much more music on it.

The localised UK version which I am now forced to use is rubbish - I'd rather have adverts and ten times the songs.

Grumpy I am.

Just joined, here.

hey, chapmans getting down to some motherloving p-funk!

Oh, yeah.

OK, I think I've just about worked out how this darned thnig works. But I was under the impression that any iTunes tracks you had would be uploaded also. Am I wrong?

Nup - it only keeps a record of what you actually play.

S'ok now, have worked the darned thing out. Tis actually very good. I am broadening my horizons. Or something.

EDIT: How do you listen to individual artists and tracks? I can find the track or artist, but can't seem to just play it/them. Help please.

From what I can remember of the old system prior to the revamp, you used to be able to cue up 30 second previews of album tracks by most, if not all artists - now I think they only seem to allow certain tracks to be listened to directly.

Anyone else on there? I joined up the other day.

Here I am!

I haven't really worked out how to get it working quite properly. Maybe I should spend a little more time on it.

*merged with existing thread*




Incidentally, I use Last.FM all the time. It's ace.

Ade be here

I'm on there but I've not been on in an age and it's all changed. I can't just stick my playlist on like I used to. I think I need to pay/subscribe or something now. I got frustrated with it.

I could never work out how to use it.

Pretty much why I got frustrated with it in the end. Just stick the radio on.

What's to figure out? It's a doddle.

Because you can't listen to the songs you want to, I like I just tried to do.

Fair enough. I guess that's where the subscription aspect comes in.

I prefer the random factor though, and you can skip tracks if you don't want to listen to them.

The other aspect I really like is the facility to listen to other users' personalised radio stations. Great way to discover new music.

My username is Lou_m if any peeps want to add me.

Done.

My username is Robinlangjones if anyone wants to do the same. I have only just set the account up though so don't expect to see much. I will get it linked back up with itunes and all that when I get back on my main rig.

How do I link it with iTunes?

There's a link to something called Scrobbler that apparently pulls the artists from your itunes collection. Not sure whether it works yet though I'm buggered if I'm going to type them all out manually.

A double post I'm afraid.

I'm rather hooked on this now, is anyone else using it I can add?

It's quite fun going to random user pages and checking musical compatibility as well.

I'm hooked too, downloading the iTunes scrobbler now.

Here I is.
Anyone using Firefox might want to download this addon. It adds a simple toolbar that links directly to your lastfm account and makes using the service one hell of a lot simpler by taking the need to have the site open in a window or have the separate application running away.