Web 2.0 makes good (finally)
It's a pointless concept, of use only to marketing people and journalists on PC magazines, but Web 2.0 remains a buzz-word in net terms - and I've finally found something which tags itself as Web 2.0 which isn't populated entirely by fourteen year old girls and sweaty 40 year old truck drivers calling themselves Ahsley Kate and wanting to be best girlfriends.
last.fm is a streaming radio station along the same lines as the US-only Pandora. You register and download a plug-in for Winamp or WMP and from then on every song you play on your PC is remembered by last.fm. Play enough tracks and you provide the last.fm with an increasingly good idea of your music taste.
So far, so reasonable, but hardly groundbreaking - streaming radio is getting better in quality all the time and some degree of personalisation is always good, but it's not exactly a mad leap into the unknown.
What is cool though is the Group facility - get some of your mates to also use the plug-in and you can create a gestalt of your combined tastes, and then listen to a radio station based on that mix of tastes.
Even if you all have vaguely similar tastes, it's surprising how much good stuff you never came across before pops quasi-randomly up. In the last couple of days I've heard great songs by bands like El Pedro del Mar* that I'd never otherwise have heard**.
Recommended in a way that a Ryze account really isn't (hence the playlist box to the left hand side of this page - don't I have great taste!)
* So obscure it seems they have no non-MySpace web hits on Google at all.
**Also a Garbage song - when I find out who threw that in the mix, there'll be trouble, mark my words.
last.fm is a streaming radio station along the same lines as the US-only Pandora. You register and download a plug-in for Winamp or WMP and from then on every song you play on your PC is remembered by last.fm. Play enough tracks and you provide the last.fm with an increasingly good idea of your music taste.
So far, so reasonable, but hardly groundbreaking - streaming radio is getting better in quality all the time and some degree of personalisation is always good, but it's not exactly a mad leap into the unknown.
What is cool though is the Group facility - get some of your mates to also use the plug-in and you can create a gestalt of your combined tastes, and then listen to a radio station based on that mix of tastes.
Even if you all have vaguely similar tastes, it's surprising how much good stuff you never came across before pops quasi-randomly up. In the last couple of days I've heard great songs by bands like El Pedro del Mar* that I'd never otherwise have heard**.
Recommended in a way that a Ryze account really isn't (hence the playlist box to the left hand side of this page - don't I have great taste!)
* So obscure it seems they have no non-MySpace web hits on Google at all.
**Also a Garbage song - when I find out who threw that in the mix, there'll be trouble, mark my words.
Labels: internet
7 Comments:
Is that what Web 2.0 means? You post everything twice?
I have no idea what you are talking about, you strange and sad little man.
You've obviously been working too hard.
I didn't throw the song in the mix, but Garbage are great.
(At least they were until their fourth album, which I've not heard yet.)
SAF: "I didn't throw the song in the mix,"
Actually, why don't I see your name in the Quibble group on last.fm? I know you've been on holiday but you should have caught up by now :)
Up till this morning, I think I was still busy catching up on sleep :)
Still, courtesy of your tip, I may well now check out the last.fm group thingy, cheers.
Love the Life On Mars graphic - nice one!
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