Rolling last.fm thread 2012: The Scrobbling

Getting more and more spam friend requests from bands and labels. No thanks guys, I don't want to be your friend (especially when we have Very Low compatibility).

best new discoveries of 2011 http://www.last.fm/bestof/2011/discoveries?limit=100

check #33

it seems insane to me that there's no shazam-like app for scrobbling tracks. like, hold up your phone, it identifies whatever's playing and scrobbles it to your last.fm profile.

i've seen many forum posts and abandoned projects on github but nothing like this actually exists, does it?

^ ?

I also find it marginally annoying that last.fm is so cash poor that you have to be, like, a "premium scrobbler" to get these apps to update the collages and so forth...

it seems insane to me that there's no shazam-like app for scrobbling tracks. like, hold up your phone, it identifies whatever's playing and scrobbles it to your last.fm profile.

but then you wouldn't really be listening to it actively, would you? if you just heard the track in a bar or whatever. your last.fm profile should be made up of things you choose to listen to.

12 months:

http://lastfm.dontdrinkandroot.net/tools/user/artistcloud/richardrj/12month/normal_thumb.png

but then you wouldn't really be listening to it actively, would you? if you just heard the track in a bar or whatever. your last.fm profile should be made up of things you choose to listen to.

This is crazy! Why?

But even accepting this (which I don't), who's to say I didn't put that song on the jukebox? Or put a record on the record player?

And what about all the times you or I have just left Spotify or iTunes "running", and it's played a whole bunch of stuff we never really were listening to, or barely listened to, or actually hated? It all scrobbles..

For me last.fm ought to be a record of all the music I've listened to that was worth noting down, and that includes stuff I hear in clubs, bars, friends' houses, the record player, jukeboxes...

no, it should be a reflection of your taste in music. and that stuff you randomly hear is not part of your taste.

the reason for that being that one of the main ideas of last.fm is that it recommends music and friends to you based on what you listen to. if what you listen to isn't necessarily what you like, it fails.

Well my scrobbles are mostly just stuff I thought might possibly like or be interested in hearing. I won't know if I actually like it until after I've listened to it.

fair enough. then the recommendations thing still holds true. my scrobbles are just of albums I like played through the computer.

Yeah the recommendations does still work - also one of the most useful things last.fm does for me is the RSS feed of gig recommendations, so it does help that I do scrobble stuff from my ipod sporadically (when it works which is hardly ever) which tends to be stuff I do actually like.

Thanks, I didn't know it did that. Will have to investigate. I know songkick does it, but I hate songkick.

For me last.fm ought to be a record of all the music I've listened to that was worth noting down, and that includes stuff I hear in clubs, bars, friends' houses, the record player, jukeboxes...

― TracerHandVEVO (Tracer Hand), zondag 19 februari 2012 14:23 (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

no, it should be a reflection of your taste in music. and that stuff you randomly hear is not part of your taste.

― ban this sick stunt (anagram), zondag 19 februari 2012 14:29 (58 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Lol, are you from the last.fm police? If Trayce wants her profile to track everything she listens to, why not let her? As if there is a rule how to use lastfm!

I use my lastfm for the exact same reason Trayce does. I don't use the recommendation thing at all, it's useless for me.

Oh! I Always Get Those Two Mixed Up!

?

Oh I see hehe, soz

Lol, are you from the last.fm police? If Trayce wants her profile to track everything she listens to, why not let her? As if there is a rule how to use lastfm!

well, she said it ought to be one thing and I said it ought to be another thing. not sure why it's ok to say one but not the other.

No, I'm saying it's silly to say what website usage ought to be. Tracer just said how he used, you said how it is supposed to be used.

Well I dunno, saying that "last.fm ought to be a record of all the music I've listened to that was worth noting down" sounds pretty much like a statement of how it is supposed to be used to me, but whatever.

Nice use of c&p to get rid of the "for me" that prefaced that statement.

you're welcome to add it back if you like, it doesn't make any difference to the point I was making.

You didn't address the issue of me choosing to put a record on my turntable, or choosing to put a record on a jukebox. Both of those scenarios fit your definition of tracks that I've actively chosen to listen to, and there's currently no way to scrobble them automatically (you can always use the Universal Scrobbler, but I'm not doing admin work in a bar..).

Beyond that, though, there's PLENTY of stuff I listen to that I don't like. Youtube links somebody sends me, a compilation full of tracks I don't know, hell, a whole album full of stuff that I want to learn about but in the end decide eh - not for me. It all gets scrobbled. Unless I go back and unscrobble them. I don't even know if you can do that. But cf my last graf about doing admin work.. Life's too short.

So already, by your definition, last.fm is "failing" because I suspect many, many people listen to songs they don't necessarily like, not just me. But you know, it still sort of basically works. Even if I don't like the new Gui Boratto single very much, it's still valuable for recommendation purposes for last.fm to know that I like Gui Boratto in general.

Keeping on this train of thought, about recommendations and building a profile: if I'm out in a bar or a club or a friend's house and the radio's on or whatever, and I REALLY LIKE a song, enough to launch an app on my phone to scrobble it, or to find out what it is, surely that is valuable information for last.fm to have. It should maybe even be given more weighting in whatever algorithms the last.fm chipmunks use to create recommendations.

you're welcome to add it back if you like, it doesn't make any difference to the point I was making.

― ban this sick stunt (anagram), Sunday, February 19, 2012 5:39 PM (6 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Yes it does. The words you used specifically indicated that you were stating how last.fm should be used by everyone. The words Tracer used specifically indicated that he was stating how he feels it should be used by him.

Look: your last.fm profile should be made up of things you choose to listen to. Here you say 'your' last.fm profile. You don't say 'my' last.fm profile. So you're not just saying what you want to do with it, you're setting limitations on what other people should be allowed to do with it.

And now Tracer's response: For me last.fm ought to be a record of all the music I've listened to that was worth noting down, and that includes stuff I hear in clubs, bars, friends' houses, the record player, jukeboxes... All of this is personal, using the 'I'. All of this is simply what Tracer wants to do. He's not saying YOU have to do it too.

And you again: no, it should be a reflection of your taste in music. and that stuff you randomly hear is not part of your taste. Which not only isn't true, but is explicitly saying 'YOU'RE USING IT WRONG YOU CAN'T DO IT LIKE THAT'.

http://gossiponthis.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/05/simon.gif

Thanks Emily, I didn't have the energy to break it down like that, but that's how I read it. And I read it like that because it is precisely how anagram said it.

Yeah, I actually hardly ever use the recommendation functions. For me it's more of a cheat sheet of what friends have been listening to (and a way of remembering what I have). If there's a better tool for that I'm all ears.

That said, if history is any guide in a couple of weeks I will stop using last.fm for a year or two.

http://www.mymusichabits.com/visualize/algerian_goalie

So, If This Then That is kind of interesting for these purposes: http://ifttt.com/wtf

It is designed to link up your social media accounts to cross post -- and you can have it, say, link up your last.fm scrobbling to something you check regularly, like your Evernote account. Unfortunately, I can't figure out how to get it to send a list of things I've listened to, and it ends up creating a new note for every song I listen to on Spotify, which is totally unnecessary.

it does look like it's limited to 'on every scrobble' and allows no grouping of data. there are a bunch of recipes that update facebook on a scrobble or a love but none that does what you want.

(oh, i have got both ends of that completely wrong, it's not lastfm and it's not facebook. same thing applies though, no batching)

I think you could potentially do it via the last.fm RSS feed, which I think does do batches...

And I answer my question: nope, still single entries.

Weekly
http://i48.tinypic.com/xmv1cl.jpg

http://www.last.fm/user/Resonanceesk

RIP last.fm

http://playground.last.fm/demo/instant

What's cooking in the Last.fm playlisting lab
Thursday, 27 September 2012
by Mark Levy
filed under About Us
Comments: 33

In the Music Information Retrieval team here at Last.fm we’re currently developing a new generation of smart playlisting engines, and we’d like take the chance to give you a sneak preview of what they can do, as well as explaining a bit more about playlisting services in general.

You can think of playlisting engines as falling into two categories: one repeatedly chooses which track to stream next when you’re listening to an internet radio station like any of Last.fm’s radio stations; the other selects a single set of tracks from a collection all in one go, like iTunes genius or Google Music’s instant mix. While in theory these do similar jobs, as every good scientist knows, the difference between theory and practice is greater in practice than it is in theory, and in practice the requirements for these two types of playlists can be very different. Our new generation service is designed to provide instant playlists from collections of any size, and you can try a demo right now, or read on to find out more.

We’ll talk a bit more about radio playlisting in a separate post, but one of the main characteristics required from the other type of engine is the ability to choose from music collections of wildly varying sizes. Our existing engines have mostly been targeted at very large commercial catalogues containing millions of recordings – you can see them at work in the Last.fm Spotify app (start playing any track, go to the Now Playing tab in the app and click “Similar Tracks Playlist”).

The new generation of engines is designed to continue to do a really good job when choosing tracks from small personal collections. In practice that means we can’t rely on any single type of information to tell us which other tracks might be a good match for any particular playlist. Luckily thanks to your scrobbles and tags, and a bit of audio analysis and machine learning magic on our side, we have three independent types of information linking artists and tracks. Another new feature is the ability to generate playlists based on mood and other musical properties. Finally when playlisting from personal collections we’ve been able to experiment with ways of choosing the sequence of tracks that aren’t restricted by licensing rules.

But we know we still have a huge amount to learn before any machine can approach the skill of a human DJ, so we’ve built a simple demo to let you try out the services. Please let us know how you think we’re doing and we’ll incorporate your feedback into our final version of the new engines. Thanks for listening!

Mine:

http://www.last.fm/user/TheJupiter8

Your musical compatibility with TheJupiter8 is Low ;_;

Hehehehe! Gimme a chance, I only started this yesterday! :P

Your musical compatibility with TheJupiter8 is Medium

Music you have in common includes Japan, The Cure, Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark, The Stranglers and New Order The 80s.

HA! Yeah, I'm on a bit of an '80s kick at the moment... having said that, when am I not?

We're super! Except for Smashing Pumpkins, not super.

very low :(

Not enough Alicia Keys Alicia, eh? :)

Your musical compatibility with TheJupiter8 is VERY LOW
Music you have in common includes Simple Minds and Kraftwerk.

Pretty sure I've only ever scrobbled one Simple Minds track ('Twist/Run/Repulsion', which I genuinely think is great).

https://secure.last.fm/settings/dataexporter

cool!

yeah the calendar function is all I use this for but it's great for that, there's no better source of gig listings. I like adding events too.

Is songkick not a better thing for gigs? I don't use it, and only really use last.fm for stats, lovely stats. Though I might click 'attending' if I happen to log on and see a gig I'm actually going to.

last.fm does do a lot of cool things and as weird and useless parts of it are I've discovered a ton of real good stuff through the custom radio stations.

I've always found Last to have more gigs than songkick actually. but maybe it varies from city to city

xp

What's everyone's score?
http://obscurometer.com/

88.1% obscure

that is pretty high! You been listening to really obscure post-punk again?

40.2%

63.1%

82.4% over the last 12 months as I've rapidly solidified into an old man offended by broad social trends

Of course! That and plenty of krautrock and NDW lately.

Austintayeshus's musical tastes are more obscure than
45.8%
of all other users!

Austintayeshus's overall favorite bands and artists
are 51.3% obscure on average.

http://www.last.fm/user/Austintayeshus

21.4%, haha. Makes sense as Beyoncé recently became my most played artist.

i like how, by this measuring stick, the Beatles are more obscure than Coldplay.

they are for the last.fm community

Most users will be under 40

I wondered where you got the info from, but I found it
http://i.imgur.com/i0O2aVJ.png

6.0%
Oh my word

99.0%

What's the most obscure band in your stats?

The highest I could find was Solbakken at 95.2%.

My bands are pretty obscure. Morgan Fisher, Kit Ream, the Phi Mu Washboard Band - all pretty obscure. For some reason Axemen and Carambolage are super obscure, which surprises me as I know a fair few people who love them.

The least obscure band in my top artists are the Go-Betweens, and they're 67.9% obscure, which is still kind of obscure, I guess? I'm a little surprised they're less obscure than Perfume and John Maus, though.

emil.y isnt 99%. She's 99% more obscure than most listeners. The line below tells you her actual score -

overall favorite bands and artists
are 86.1% obscure on average.

mine is

Algerian_Goalie's musical tastes are more obscure than
85.5%
of all other users!

Algerian_Goalie's overall favorite bands and artists
are 69.8% obscure on average.

seandalai's musical tastes are more obscure than
50.1%
of all other users!

seandalai's overall favorite bands and artists
are 53.1% obscure on average.

tracerhand's musical tastes are more obscure than
89.4%
of all other users!

tracerhand's overall favorite bands and artists
are 72.7% obscure on average.

which is weird because i feel like all i ever listen to is willie nelson and dr dre

29.7 for me.

My musical tastes are more obscure than 21.9% of all other users.

My favorite bands and artists over the last 3 months are 56.9% obscure on average.

The most obscure artists I have listened to most in the last 3 months are Gregor Schwellenbach (93.4%) and Aziza Brahim (92.1%). I have no idea who either of them are, to be honest.

http://obscurometer.com/user/Algerian_Goalie?s=badge

Algerian_Goalie's musical tastes are more obscure than
97.1%
of all other users!

Algerian_Goalie's overall favorite bands and artists
are 81.3% obscure on average.

http://obscurometer.com/images/badge.php?u=Algerian_Goalie&bc=fff&tc=000&hc=00f

69.0%. I've lost my edge

you been listening to coldplay again?