Personalized radio that (almost) works

I think I have written about my love for Audioscrobbler before – the service that keeps track of what music you are listening to, show you the statistics and make suggestions of other artists you might like. This post I’ll dedicate to their other project, last.fm, an online radio station that uses the data from your Audioscrobbler profile to customize a radio broadcast that you will like.
The idea is brilliant, and works in the same way that Amazon.com recommends you books you might be interested in – by checking other users who like the same artists as you do, and see what artists they like that are not already in your profile.
Whenever you hear a song or an artist you don’t like, you have the option to click “Skip” – which simply skips to another song – or “Ban” – which means you don’t have to hear it ever again.
There’s a third button to reinforce a songs playrate on your radio – “Love”.

I’ve been using the radio for a couple of weeks now, and it has introduced me to or reminded me of several artists that I like.
It helps if you have a lot of data in your Audioscrobbler profile, of course, which means the accuracy will only get better.

Now, this is a project under development, which means there’ll be a lag in the stream at times, sometimes the site won’t be accessible etc. Temporary problems, I hope, because this is a keeper.


Here’s my last.fm station

lotta

Web veteran, journalist, blogger since 1998, loves creativity and originality, photography and her family. [More]

You may also like...

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *