We’re pleased to announce the release of Last.fm Music, our first (and certainly not last) Facebook app. A big thanks to everyone who suggested features and ideas over the last week… this is only the beginning but we think it will grow into something pretty cool.
Rapid application development?
Since the launch of Facebook Platform last Thursday, certain parties have been wondering where our application was. The truth is that we were perplexingly left out of Facebook’s early development program, so while some of our competitors had six weeks to work on their stuff, we had to wait until Thursday like everyone else. The past six days have included 11-hour flights between London and San Francisco, a bank holiday weekend, and some very late nights pulled by our creative/webteam uber hax0rs… but less than a week later we have something for you to play with.
What it does
For our first release we decided to focus on something that’s unique to Last.fm, something that everyone on Facebook can use even without a Last.fm profile: our personalized full-length streaming radio. You can showcase any of your stations (or your playlist) along with recently-played tracks on your Facebook page. If you don’t have a Last.fm username, the app creates a station based on the artists listed in your ‘favourite music’ section. We’ve also made it easy to see all your Facebook friends’ stations on one page, so you can quickly see who’s listening now and play their music with a single click. You can even browse new music recommendations and compare compatibility with the Taste-o-meter right from Facebook.
Since you don’t even need a Last.fm account to use the app, you can safely pester all your friends to add it. ;)
What it doesn’t do
Facebook has built a seriously incredible platform for web developers to work with. As with anything new, though, it’s not without some shortcomings. The most serious for us is that it’s currently very difficult to put “real-time” information on profile pages without requiring a click. (This is why we have to put your recently-played tracks in a tab for now, sigh.) We know this is less than ideal, and hopefully this situation will improve soon.
We also didn’t want to spend too long developing something huge, so we’ve left our extremely popular concert and events listings out of the mix for now. Fear not, they’ll be making an appearance soon enough.
On behalf of the whole webteam: have fun and see you on the brave new Facebook! The music has arrived.
Comments
Adriaan
31 May, 21:24
Ah i love you guys!!!
xoxoxooxoxox lol
Mike
31 May, 21:27
Looking good guys, thanks for putting this together :D
Agustin A
31 May, 21:32
u guys rock so much, thanx :)
Bart
31 May, 22:03
Very nice!
Does this blog have a rss-feed by the way?
Kurt
31 May, 22:14
Thank you, Last.fm…you’re amazing! Kudos for getting the app developed so quickly!
Also Mike
31 May, 22:19
I’m happy to wait when the outcome is this good! Thanks.
Si Chun
31 May, 22:28
Thank you, this is a brilliant application and well done for developing it so quickly. Great idea to link it to the music information on people’s profile, too!
Project
31 May, 22:30
Excellent stuff at such short notice.
Looking forward to further updates.
Alex
31 May, 22:35
YASSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS
(insert gloating competitor here) will be silenced within a few days. Great work guys!
Liz
31 May, 22:52
There seems to be some glitch (not sure whether it’s the app or facebook itself). The application isn’t showing up on my profile, and when I click “configure” it just says the application has already been added.
What’s the deal?
Mike
31 May, 23:17
Yes this blog has an rss feed:
http://blog.last.fm/atom/?section=blog
I’m really glad you guys got the application done. However I can’t preview songs listed in the ‘recently played’ tab, is this not possible?
Sam
31 May, 23:22
Is it possible to disable shuffle mode on the playlists? If not, it’d be awesome if that could be added.
AR
31 May, 23:31
Same here – when I go to configure and then ‘add to profile’ it just says already added. So far not doing anything….
Popgurl, I mean Nancy
1 June, 00:02
Super slick! Worked like a charm for me. I also really liked the “paste this.” Now I’m gonna sit back and watch the iLike/Last.fm horse race.
Rob
1 June, 00:08
Same problem. Guessing it’s just teething problems and will be fixed soon enough. Looking forward to using it though!
Mike
1 June, 00:25
Thanks so much for this. I knew this was coming, so I didn’t want to use any of the other music applications. Can’t wait to see what else Last.fm comes up with!
Liz
1 June, 00:26
The app seems to have righted itself, now. Awesome work last.fm peeps!
<3
Cory
1 June, 01:13
Good work as usual
Phil
1 June, 02:11
Thanks, hope you guys can figure out something for the recently played soon enough.
Lucas / amoyensis
1 June, 02:21
You guys are great.
Free hugs all around.
Matthileo
1 June, 02:21
Ohkay…I understand a little better now why it is the way it is, but I do have a question…
Would it not be possible to write an app that simply allowed html in a little app box. If you could do that then you could just as easily include the html widgets like the ones you use for mypace.
Rebecca
1 June, 08:00
For the people who are anti-Radio on the Facebook app (myself included), and fully understanding the real-time implications of Recently Played, would it be possible to give the option of Weekly Top Artists (in TEXT, not quilt) as the default tab, with Recently Played a click behind?
HappyLandfill
1 June, 08:21
Alternative URL for the RSS feed….. http://blog.last.fm/rss
just a lastfm user
1 June, 09:57
Would it be possible to create facebook thing that just shows the most recent tracks without providing a link to your profile? I don’t mind people looking at my recent tracks, but I don’t necessarily want them looking at all my history.
LANjackal
1 June, 10:21
Hey guys, this is a REALLY good job for only 6 days of work. Looking forward to more development, but excellent work so far. Thanks so much.
anon
1 June, 12:16
Such a goodlooking app. But I’d second the request for the option not to provide a link to your profile. Also, if you could introduce a slightly new colour scheme (tweak the blue?) to make it fit in a bit more with Facebook’s look that would be even better. Great work though on the whole (and frickin’ love being able to put it in either column)!
akav0id
1 June, 13:54
Be great if it could display the top albums of the week, instead of the top artists ;)
I actually like the way you have to click the tab to see the recent tracks.
/me gives a big thumbs up
justthisguyyouknow
1 June, 15:41
What’s Facebook?
Is it important?
Heh.
Miles
1 June, 16:10
Hurrah, I knew you’d come through on this one. And till you get the recent tracks thing set up, we’ve got the unofficial app.
Nighthawk
1 June, 16:12
You guys have got way to go! Good work :)
Ad
1 June, 16:25
Just a suggestion: Digg’s app has somehow been able to perform live updates to profiles. Perhaps take a looksee at how they do it? Hope that helps :)
Mike
1 June, 17:13
Nice, keep up it up!!
Akhila
1 June, 17:39
It looks great — I’ve been waiting for this to come up! Yay! However there are a few minor bugs — I have a playlist but somehow it won’t display the playlist on my profile. But I’m sure this stuff will be fixed soon.
Remergence
1 June, 18:07
Nice One I love it
Mo
1 June, 18:22
I love it! But please, please, please, password protect the app!
I don’t want other people loading my last.fm account onto their profile!
clarizzle
1 June, 19:06
amazing!
good work :]
Frankie Roberto
1 June, 19:14
I’m getting “Errors while loading page from application
There are still a few kinks Facebook and the makers of Last.fm Music are trying to iron out. We appreciate your patience as we try to fix these issues. Your problem has been logged – if it persists, please come back in a few days. Thanks!”
...
bigsexyshaq
1 June, 19:29
You guys are my favorite band! And I PROMISE, you will stay my favorite band, as long as you DON’T SELL OUT!
Boaz
1 June, 20:50
last.fm, always on the ball. Thank you for existing.
angelofmoon
1 June, 21:49
Congratulations you guys. Good work and hope that everything pops in soon.
dennis
1 June, 22:00
good stuff good stuff
will
1 June, 23:05
I love it… very sleek!
Z
2 June, 00:13
@Liz – application not showing up.
I thought the same thing at first and posted a hasty damning comment (since deleted :). It is there – at the veeeery bottom of your profile page, under the oldest Wall post. You can drag it towards the top of the profile – the highest it will go is right under the list of the “mini stories” or whatever they are called.
I’m not sure what is going on with its recommendations though.. They don’t bear ANY resemblance to what I listened to last week – I haven’t heard of any of these bands!
Bastard1
2 June, 00:26
Way to get yo’ tech on >.
James Rice
2 June, 01:42
Great work guys. Last.fm is awesome.
I too, would also like top albums instead of artists… And hope you get the live feed thing sorted soon.
krish
2 June, 02:01
legends love u
Aughadan
2 June, 02:42
Well, I really love the idea of the Facebook app, but it still is not on my profile. I have it set to show, and it is not at the bottom of the page, not on the profile, nor layout. I can see it on a friend’s page, but I really hope it works soon, I see nothing more I can do.
Popgurl, I mean Nancy
2 June, 03:48
When I click on the track name of any FB friend’s last played track in the Last.fm Music application instead of getting to Last.fm to see the song info I get to… the add-this-application page for… the iLike application!
Somehow I don’t think that’s what’s supposed to happen.
(Though I had a good laugh clicking on Thor’s most recent listen and finding iLike staring back at me)
einsteinbqat
2 June, 04:45
What if I don’t want the top links (View profile, View top weekly artists, etc.) to be there? The Last.fm Facebook app is great but I’d like it more if I could customize it a bit more.
Jenny
2 June, 04:51
You guys are amazing. Thank you sooo much! :D It’s not perfect yet but knowing you guys… it will be perfected slowly.
awazakito
2 June, 05:41
thank youuuuuuuuuuuuuuu i was waiting for this!!!!!!! gracias! u guys r awesome!
dani
2 June, 05:47
very cool. thanks a lot.
xx
encosion
2 June, 06:01
Sweet… I propose you develope two additional, separate Facebook apps…
[1] The first is nothing too fancy – a simple RSS reader for recently played tracks! Make it text, format it to fit within the current colour-scheme of Facebook, and make it Left column compatible… Set it to auto-refresh every 60 seconds… Simple eh?
[2] Something similar but for events only…
Don’t try to put too many hooks into any of them… People who are interested will visit your site and be impressed… No need to advertise more blatantly than that…
I like the idea of a radio station, but seldom use it… So I’d suggest you develop a suite of Apps… One uber app with tabs and the kitchen sink… But a couple separate apps with dedicated functions so that we can put the combinations we want onto our profiles…
Keep it simple!
ernskee
2 June, 06:42
very appreciated. good work guys.
Glejs
2 June, 08:21
Wonderful! :)
oflannabhra
2 June, 08:35
I love the app, it’s definitely up to the quality that L.fm is known for, and why we all use it. I was, however, hoping that in the second release we could have an option for the widget to default to displaying our recently played tracks. I understand that this only applies to L.fm users, whereas the radio applies to all Facebook users, but at least having the option somewhere in there would be great. Thanks guys!
Barb / b1ackroses
2 June, 09:51
I really like it. Good job, guys. I especially like that it scrobbles anything you stream on facebook. I was just playing with it and was pleased to see that the song I listened to was in my recently played tracks. Thumbs-up for you. :D
Jonathan Biddle
2 June, 16:43
ACE!
A Subscriber Who's Fed Up with LAST.FM
2 June, 17:21
It seems to me you should fix your subscribers and listeners problems on your last.fm client before you pat yourselfs on the back for a new application about their tracks not scrobbling/not showing up/constant error message. You have people complaining for days on end in your last.fm client forum and there is never an official response. What gives in that area?
You’re ignoring your foundation of listeners and Seth Godin would say that completely sucks!
DO SOMETHING!!!!!!!!!!!!
Shawn
2 June, 17:25
Is there a way to set the player to play upon loading of a persons profile??
jdh
2 June, 21:08
here’s another vote for a super-simple text-only app for recently played tracks, charts etc
Karanina
2 June, 21:29
this is so cool! thank you!
Spencer
2 June, 21:50
Thank you!
aengus
2 June, 23:20
this is great news.
keep up the good work, lads.
Stephanie Jo
3 June, 04:35
yay! All positive and supportive comments, agreed on. =D !!
P.
3 June, 13:12
What’s going on with scrobbling ?
Daniel Aleksandersen
3 June, 13:15
I think this is a great tool! It completely changed my view on the Facebook Platform! I was afraid the open platform was going to ruin Facebook. But with great applications like this that is no longer a concern.
I do miss the ability to populate Facebook’s own «Favorite Music» option with comma separated favorite artists from my Last.fm profile. It would be great to have this synchronized!
DarkSaber2k
3 June, 13:27
Great, now about sorting the numerous problems that have started plaguing Last fm and the software?
Dijital
3 June, 13:36
shame it doesn’t work
Ramkumar
3 June, 14:34
You guys rock. I’ll prolly get a facebook account just because of you guys. For some reason, I haven’t caved in yet. ;)
SOLOSAIR
3 June, 14:36
Re “Fed Up” of 2nd June, I must say I am rather frustrated too by the constant “error” message instead of “scrobbled” and over the past few hours, a “couldn’t connect to server submissions, tracks cached” type message. Please concentrate on rectifying these problems before going in any more directions. PLEASE!?
TMK
3 June, 14:40
I know you’re Web 2.0 and all, but who writes a whole blog in italics? Please don’t.
mud
3 June, 17:23
all seem to work lovley, but is it possible to scrobe tunes played in face book????????
Doug Whitfield
3 June, 19:10
whole blog in italics? Doesn’t show up like that here.
I hope facebook doesn’t ever let music start playing when a page loads. That would be WAAAAAAAAAAAAY too MySpace.
Kat
3 June, 20:14
what an awesome idea! Thanks guys! =]
girlonthewing6
3 June, 21:09
This was the application I was waiting on, and I am so glad it’s here. It was worth the wait. =) Thank you!
aneagleinyourmind
4 June, 02:23
Thanks for developing this application! I’ve been wanting something like this! Now if only we could rate our albums on last.fm and also post these ratings on our facebooks… just an idea! Once again, thanks!
alex
4 June, 04:18
recommendation to gain more popularity:
last.fm should do a function to invite friends to join “last.fm” i mean.. not a note…
just like a friend request (invitation request)
actually filxster has that function… the “Movies friend request”
i don’t think there would be a problem of a “last.fm friend request”
it would make more people join to last.fm and finaly beat “iLike”
here is an example:
http://i17.tinypic.com/4osxoir.jpg
but instead of flixster = lastfm =)
paradisss
4 June, 07:47
work perfect together! Merci;)
akirabomb
4 June, 15:43
rss feed please! Pretty please? Would like to read this from my livejournal account. :)
Stephen
4 June, 20:38
Hmm, yeah I think most of the comments already said it all. Autoplay or autoupdate is not currently possible with facebook’s restrictions, and the general community does NOT WANT AUTOPLAY!!! But some customization of the app, or perhaps a suite of apps with different functions: displaying top albums, top songs, your compatibility rating within facebook, etc. would be amazing. But I do like the app as it is and to keep clutter off I’ve bumped iLike and similar apps off of my profile to give last.fm some breathing room.
Lilia
4 June, 22:57
I love Lastfm on my facebook profile! you guys are awesome! Ilove your playlist on this profile as well, is there a way to play it on my facebook/?
cf
4 June, 23:11
In the Facebook app, they should make the “Recently Played” list appear first as default… Because I don’t use the Radio much and I’m too lazy to make playlists, heheh…
originalp
6 June, 13:15
My only complain was the Recently Played list but you already know that and I didn’t know why it was an issue… now I do. :)
Great work!!
ben adams
7 June, 00:15
you guys rock, it must be super hard work updating and fixing and dealing with issues and you do it so well. Thanks for all the music… the songs I’m singing…
nice one
Gabe17
7 June, 04:02
I’m so glad it’s here, it’s still hard to believe. Can’t wait for the new suprises! Thanks guys
shov1
7 June, 19:51
Any of you guys tried the last.fm plus facebook app? a nice lightweight app that can show your recently played tracks in the left hand column. last.fm: you should work with the developer of this app to improve it (although not much needs to be done, just integration of the the links to play the tracks).
chrominance
8 June, 00:00
Surprised no one’s brought up this unofficial app yet. Updates much more frequently than the original unofficial app by Jake Jarvis, and retains the stripped-down recently played list. Great for people who just want to show people what they’ve been listening to without all the Flash garbage.
Matt
8 June, 14:30
Hey guys! Yeah, the Last.fm Plus app is awesome. Unfortunately the way it updates would get us in trouble with Facebook if we did it at our larger scale, so it’s a bit of a false comparison unfortunately. :(
I need to drop Paul Wells a line and say hello and thanks for his app though. Perhaps together we can convince Facebook to make a better way to do this…
digdag88
9 June, 15:42
amazing. the release of this app completely made my day.
it’s the only app i’ve got that’s not made by facebook.
Mangucha
9 June, 20:20
Awesome. Can’t wait till the recently played is the default :D
ecoice
10 June, 05:34
Thanks so much for the application! Thanks for your hard work! Appreciate it!
Razors Slice
10 June, 07:17
Sweet.
Steve
11 June, 23:58
On the real time data, how come applications like digg.com can update my latest diggs realtime and you ca’t update my music?
Devious
14 June, 01:51
After being witness to some truely horrendous and time wasting add ons to facebook (Its becoming dangerously like myspace already), this is by far the best so far. A definate requirement for any last.fm user!
Rich W
15 June, 21:09
I think it’d be a lot better if your favourite artists list on facebook could run off your top last.fm artists. It’s too much effort syncing them up manually!
bassetrox
16 June, 14:05
A really nice widget would be a line graph showing the fortunes of certain artists over time.
No of plays plotted against time or perasonal chart position against time.
Yeah Im a maths geek.:|
AG
18 June, 17:20
My Personal Opinion is:
Stabilized & Fix the glitches that we members have been complaining about such as the slowly update of the “Recently Listened Tracks.”
Only then will us be comfortable with you guys giving members more & more features.
Paul Wells
19 June, 02:28
Thanks for supporting Last.fm Plus! Additionally, thank you Last.fm for being awesome and letting me read your xml feeds… a lot, heh :)
JA
17 July, 01:31
you should put this post on the FB app page (if it ain there already) as this answers somepoints ppl were bitching about on there.
We need more integration into FB and FB into last.fm. ultimately last.fm hooked into the FB userprofiles would be very powerful and cool.
Ability to “share” in FB terms (send links) to tracks albumbs in FB would help get ppl onto last.fm..
nice one
Molly
2 August, 15:27
I’m having trouble with compatibility of this Facebook app in Firefox and IE7. Works okay in IE6.
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