Effortlessly Create A Personalized Radio Staion With Last.FM
Here’s a little story that may turn out to be another big nail in the coffin of broadcast and even internet radio and provides some interesting possibilities for organic music promotion. FROM WIRED: “Internet radio stations have long been popular because of the wide variety of music they offer and the relative lack of commercials. But for those who crave musical playlists tailored to their personal tastes, it might be difficult to find a service more useful than Last.fm.
Last.fm is an online radio site — but with a twist. It works hand-in-hand with Audioscrobbler, a small software plug-in that works with popular software music players like Winamp and iTunes. The plug-in scrutinizes the music files on users’ computers and sends the information to a server. From that, Last.fm creates a personalized Internet radio station based on each user’s taste.
“It’s ideally suited for lazy people who like music,” said Last.fm technology chief Richard Jones. “Even when you’re not listening to Last.fm, the Audioscrobbler plug-in is helping build your profile without you doing anything. So next time you come back to Last.fm, the radio is even better.” In addition, Last.fm lets users sample friends’ musical choices. Listeners can “ban” friends’ songs they don’t like and designate others they love, and, in that way, diversify their musical preferences.
There are countless Internet radio stations, from PenguinRadio to Pulse Radio and many others. Many of these stations offer personalization features, but listeners have to spend quite a bit of time ranking which songs they like and which they don’t. And there’s no way to transfer the preferences from one station to another. But Last.fm eliminates the drudgery. What’s more, with the friend-sampling feature, it’s social networking crossed with Internet radio.”
