The T-Mobile Austria EDGE network can carry data speeds up to 220 kbit/s. Last.fm radio uses an MP3 stream encoded at 128 kbit/s. So I guess this should basically work, but still depends on how reliable and stable EDGE is, where I don’t have any experiences with. A 3G iPhone connected to a broader bandwith would certainly do a better job on Last.fm radio.
The definition of flat-rate in most mobile phone contracts is another questionable point: a flat-rate ending at 200 MB per month (like offered in the T-Mobile Germany iPhone data package) wouldn’t allow me to enjoy Last.fm too much.
A quick example: my daily way to work, where I usually listen to my iPod, takes 25 minutes, one way. After 5 days, Monday to Friday going to work, listening to Last.fm radio only my way to work and back, streaming at 128 kbit/s, I would have already exceeded a flat-rate of 200 MB, without even using the internet on the iPhone for something else.
That wouldn’t make sense, and is in my opinion a gadget show stopper. [via macnotes]
I find it pretty impressing – considering the non-mainstream touch of last.fm – that the old Modern Talking videos constantly show up on last.fm’s weekly top videos.
I definitely want a mobile version of Last.fm radio!
The availability of Flash-enabled mobile devices to use Last.fm’s player wouldn’t be the problem. It’s rather the bandwith consumption of an internet radio together with mobile data transfer limits of our mobile carriers and costs for exceeding those limits. Using a high speed mobile conneciton like UMTS for listening to Last.fm simply would make me a poor man.
Unfortunately Vienna is far away from being fully covered by free wifi, so another option like using wifi enabled mp3 players wouldn’t work either.
In the meantime the only alternative left is continuously rearranging my iPod playlists to match my Last.fm radio a bit. It’s a bit unfair, because Last.fm is computing my profile, providing me with excellent recommendations, and then I (have to) search for certain tracks on iTMS or Bleep and buy the songs there. So the work is done by Last.fm and the profit goes to others. The only option to purchase music on Last.fm for me would be via an Amazon link, but sorry, times of ordering CDs are over.
Could you imagine a better combination for an online music store than being embeded within Last.fm’s recommendation system?
The growth of Last.fm events is pretty impressing. Within 2 weeks they’ve created an amazing collection of local music events.
I wonder if it’s all user generated content or if they just pull out the information of some other event sites. Upcoming.org for instance is by 100% based on user data, exists much longer but never had so many events listed for Vienna as Last.fm has after only 2 weeks.
Besides the quantity, Last.fm recommends events based on their profiling engine. Meaning they tell you when bands you like are coming to town or if another concert matches your music taste.
Next step could be listing DJ events too. But therefore Last.fm would need the information about what music are DJs playing. They should probably have a look at the DJ database maintained by the Vienna based project PLAY.FM (or vice versa).
The music sharing site Last.fm got a few new features today: a Flash player, an event system and a so called taste-o-meter which gives you quick feedback on whether you like the music taste of the user profile you are viewing or not. It’s kind of scary when machines start matching people based on whatsoever profiling information.
However, well worth mentioning is the new event section. I guess this means some heavy competition for event sites like Upcoming.org. It’s quite clever to integrate music events in a music recommendation service like Last.fm. Needless to say that users can add event descriptions, pictures, videos and tell if they are attending.
Last.fm offers a great service, if you love music you’ll love Last.fm.
Last.fm only makes sense if it knows what music you’re listening too. Without that it’s totally useless.
It’s the basis for last.fm’s user specific music recommendations and social networking features like music neighbours.
Assumed that the system is working and knows your taste of music, last.fm is an excellent way to discover new music.
iTunes 7 stopped the fun:
Thank Apple for silently changing the iTunes AppleScript dictionary definition and breaking it in the first place!
After the update I wasn’t any longer able to sync my iPod playlist with last.fm. Most of the time I listen to music on the iPod, so I heavily rely on that feature.
Finally I found the right group and thread today that solve all “Track is too short to be submitted” problems. It’s easy, just get the iScrobbler 1.2.1 test 2 version. Last.fm should address this issue somewhere in the official download section.
