Last.FM is an expansive online social network centered around its users main goal; to listen to good music. It accomplishes this goal in a number of ways, both automatic and user input based. One unique thing about the Last.FM website, is that it includes features found in other social networking tools such as FaceBook, Delicious and Google Calendar. Its ability to utilise various features found exclusively in these external tools allows it to take one extra step forward from being a specialised networking tool to being a social networking hub. This reflection piece will discuss how Last.FM integrates various aspects of other social networking sites, as well as how effective it is at managing a persons music tastes.
Last.FM is an online networking tool unlike most, in that it combines many different aspects of social networking into one application, allowing friends to share music tastes among other things. However, consideration must be given as to how well it achieves its goals, as well as how it copes with the legal restrictions currently in place when dealing with online music distribution.
The downloaded sister application for the website allows the user to start 'scrobbling'. Scrobbling is a non-sensical word given to the task users undertake of selecting different songs and then sending that play data back to the Last.FM servers, which in turn both add your recently played tracks into your history, giving you a more personalised radio and music experience the next time you visit the site, and also allows the site to 'organise and recommend music to people; we use it to create personalised radio stations, and a lot more besides.' [1]
Comparisons:
Last.FM is similar to Google Calendar in that both feature a basic calendar with events listed, both can show and list events in specific months, and both can share these events with friends online. Google Calendar, being a specialised calendar application, has the ability to record new events, store much more information on the events, and has many other specialised tools available to a calendar application. Last.FM, however has pre-loaded music festival information uploaded to the server, allowing you to find quickly what popular events are taking place globally, or what local events are happening that coincide with your music taste. Last.FM automatically generates recommended events based on your past selection of music.
The Delicious book marking system that is becoming more and more popular uses a similar system of tagging that is found in the Last.FM recommended music selection. However, the tagging system used by Last.FM is completely ubiquitous, meaning that the service automatically determines what kind of music the user likes to listen to, and then plays one of these songs (or a song by an artist with a similar type of music) via the Last.FM radio, without the user ever being aware that their music usage statistics were being accessed. Delicious, however, relies on users manually inputting bookmarks and tagging websites for others to hear about.
Now, Facebook is a social networking tool that focuses around finding friends online and interacting with them online. Facebook features numerous tools and plug-in applications that allow users to interact in different and interesting ways. Last.FM features a tool whereby you can import contacts from Hotmail, AOL mail, Yahoo or Gmail as friends, and then interact with them in a variety of ways.
Last.FM has a wide array of networking tools that can compete with many other networking tools found externally. For example, the site allows for a friends list with pictures and chat, 'Latest recommendations', a place for friends to recommend songs, 'Event updates' which sample real live local concerts in your area and gives you dates, locations, even approximate people attending (from the site). All of these features, however, have to be set up online to be properly utilised. The following features, however, I found to just start working from the moment you start listening to songs. 'Recommended Artists' lists a selection of artists based on artists that you had previously sought after and listened to. 'Recommended events' presents the user with a sample of real live local concerts in your area and gives you dates, locations, even approximate people attending (from the site). It also allows you to track which events your friends are going to, and allows you to send friend invites.
The site features tools for downloading music files, but is not considered to be a file sharing network. While you can download free .mp3 files through the network, most of the time any band page you visit will only contain 30 second samples for download. Proliferating free music is not this websites main goal. It's goal is to connect music lovers with other music lovers that have similar tastes (also called Neighbours in the application), or with artists that are similar to the music they're listening to. It is a network best used in conjunction with a user who already has plenty of music cd's, but is looking to find artists with similar sounds to what he or she is currently listening to.
An example of the legal bindings some social networking music sites face is the site called Pandora. It was an online radio site that tailors each users radio to the peculiar music tastes of each user. However, due to 'recent Copyright Royalty Board rulings that increase fees and ask for licensing guarantees' [2], it has closed its doors to international operations. Whether this will be the fate of other online radio stations such as Last.FM will be dependant on user statistics and increasing royalties fees.
Reflections:
Two of the main benefits of using a social networking system that includes all of these features is interoperability, guaranteeing that all features work with each other, and contact sharing, not having to import multiple contacts across multiple web sites. Two of the main disadvantages of using just one program to handle social online interaction is the (generally) smaller user base, which limits how many people you can interact with, and the lack of specialised tools found only on focused social networking tools.
Neighbours is a new concept found in Last.FM, referring to people who you do not know or have any connection with, other than your music tastes. It is a great tool that can be used to find people who are in your area who have similar tastes to you. Very few social networking tools allows for complete strangers to interact and share common interests. This is a great example of how Last.FM is both generalising networking tools while also specialising in some fields. I personally used neighbours to find a couple of people interested in bands that i like, such as Prodigy and Massive Attack, and through them found bands that i had never heard of before, like Unkle.
After using the Last.FM application for a couple of days, i found that its ability to find music that is similar is limited only in the music that is accessible through the application. After starting the radio looking for the band Prodigy, it played five bands after Prodigy – Firestarter that were very similar in style (and that I had bought cds of). Scrobbling tracks is how Last.FM makes this automatic music selection possible, so in a way it is very much like Delicious in that without a solid user base, much of the music would not be associated.
Conclusion:
The website Last.FM, in conjunction with the application of the same name, uses a variety of networking tools found in more specialised social networking sites, which in turn reduces the number of users who choose to use other social networking sites. This has both negative and positive effects, reducing the need for users to set up multiple accounts and go through repetitive processes, but also limiting the user base of people that users can interact with.
References:
[1] Scrobbling FAQ
http://www.last.fm/help/faq/?id=321
[2] Copyright Royalty changes in the United states 2007, Wikipedia article
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_radio#2007_copyright_royalty_changes_in_the_United_States
'The social and mobile revolution awaits!' - Catchline Last.FM application
Author: Tom Ireland s4100358
9 comments:
Posted by Tom Ireland at 2:59 PM
:D:D:D:D
2:59!
Great piece. Really well balanced. I very much liked how you presented LastFM in terms of the other social tools. I personally am still not comfortable with contacting total strangers online even if it is just about music.
Hey it was quite an interesting analysis on how Last.FM has features that other social networking tools also have. I noticed that there are quotes within the piece but they are kind of hard to make out while this may not be wrong in referencing style they could be emphasized a bit. Maybe a little more on the reflection, But quite a good read.
Nice read on the inner workings of Last.FM and how it all fits together. (love the ITM reference in the title too, if that was unintentional, then never mind !).
I agree with what harrison said about the some of the quotes were a bit tricky to spot. But it's always nice to see someone elses opinion on something that I quite enjoy using. The neighbor feature is great, I havn't used the radio feature much though - so it might be something I should look into.
- Anthony
Mirror mirror on the wall... I can see exactly how you feel in regards to Last.FM, perhaps too clearly :P. Short and sweet I like it, the reflection was easy to read and did just what it was supposed to, give insight into how you felt using Last.FM. Good Work
Robert
Thanks guys for the comments, after looking over it i can see that yeah the references i made were not very visible.
Oh, and the ITM reference wasn't intended, but looking back its kinda funny :>
An interesting way to tackle the assignment. You have given a really good background on the Last.FM tool, and your comparison to other services is an interesting take. It would have been nice to see in the introduction why you structured your article in this way (not that its bad, its just a bit of a leap from the specific criteria). While you have done an excellent job of reviewing Last.FM, you could have taken the description to the larger context of the course itself. Additionally, your reflection seems to be about the features provided by Last.FM, rather than the social community surrounding the community. Quotes were a little hard to make out, and I think some images would really help when describing specific features. Overall a good read and interesting article, just missing the reflection back to the overall social/mobile community based tools.
Post a Comment