last.fm

Last.fm is the flagship product from the team that designed the Audioscrobbler system, a music engine based on a massive collection of Music Profiles. Each music profile belongs to one person, and describes their taste in music. Last.fm uses these music profiles to make personalized recommendations, match you up with people who like similar music, and generate custom radio stations for each person.


After picking a username and signing up, you would typically install an Audioscrobbler Plugin for your media player (iTunes, Winamp etc..) which sends the name of every song you play on your computer to Last.fm. Over time, this list of songs grows larger and larger - you can see your personal listening charts on your userpage. Last.fm automatically finds people with a similar taste, and generates music recommendations for you.

If you have a broadband internet connection, you should grab the Last.fm Player. This is a small application that plays you Last.fm radio - where each listener gets different songs, all picked automatically depending on your music taste.

A whole bunch of new features have just (Feb '06) been added. For example, on music pages you'll notice new triangular play buttons - click these and a 30-second (or if the button is red, full-length) preview will start playing right in the page! This is pretty cool, but if you'd prefer to hear previews the traditional way using the Last.fm Player, all you need to do is change a setting.

There are dozens of other entertaining and useful aspects of Last.fm, but you'll have to sign up and explore them for yourself.

Take the Last.fm Screenshot Tour.
My profile page is here.