Listeners, Leopard, Lookups, and Lots More

Wednesday, 31 October 2007
by rj
filed under Announcements and Code
Comments: 44

Although I feel bad pushing the Shaggy Bigs Up Last.fm video further down the page (sorry Muz), here is an update on recent releases in case you missed them:

Last.fm on OS X Leopard (beta)

Max has posted a build of the Last.fm software which supposedly plays nice with Leopard, see this forum thread for the download link. Feedback appreciated from Leopard users (in that thread please!) so we can ‘officially’ release a Leopard build.

Listeners update: Just Listened

The ‘listeners’ section on artist/album/track pages now includes a healthy mix of people who are currently online and have just listened to the item in question. This makes for some interesting exploration.

Just Listened Example

Privacy

If you’re worried about your ex-girlfriend stalking your profile to see when you’re online (you know who you are), then you can opt-out of realtime features from your privacy settings.

Fingerprinting

Norman has published a command-line fingerprint client which also returns some basic metadata, if we can identify the song.

The next fingerprint milestone will be releasing a build of the Last.fm software that can fingerprint songs (expected in a couple of weeks time). Soon after that we’ll have enough data to publish the proper webservice, so it will be possible to give the fingerprint service a good work-out.

Needless to say we are all extremely excited at the prospect of finally fixing up the plethora of badly spelt artist and track titles on Last.fm.

Wiki Fact Tags

Artist wikis now support a few special ‘fact tags’ which allow you to markup certain important facts in artist biographies. This makes the facts easily extractable, hopefully without spoiling the readability whilst editing a wiki.

Example: Radiohead were formed in [placeformed]Oxfordshire, UK[/placeformed] in [yearformed]1986[/yearformed]….etc

Fact Tags Example

See more Artist Wiki Fact-tag examples

Admittedly we’re not doing anything especially interesting with this data yet apart from displaying it on the biography page – but the mad-scientist department at Last.fm is itching to start adding this data into the mix to improve recommendations and radio.

One more thing…

We had a flood in the office :(

Another one more thing…

Jonty & Steve have started to test their brains an extra bit each day while at the same time having some much needed looking-away-from-your-monitors time by playing relaxing games of Go. You can see the outcome of this on the live GoCam in the right sidebar here on the blog.

The GoCam

Comments

  1. coxy
    31 October, 12:06

    Factbox = Win.

    Re: the flood. Look on the bright side – at least you have a nice clean floor, now.

    coxy – 31 October, 12:06
  2. Steven Gravell
    31 October, 12:14

    The floor had to br ripped up. It’s probably the dirtiest it’s ever been :(

    Steven Gravell – 31 October, 12:14
  3. jhimbob
    31 October, 12:41

    i love this blog

    i want to be like you guys one day.

    i just love music, and statistics.

    pity i’m shit with computers.

    jhimbob – 31 October, 12:41
  4. Franky Novotny
    31 October, 12:41

    im in love with this whole listener update thing now. its nice to be listed as a top listener. yay!

    Franky Novotny – 31 October, 12:41
  5. dalen
    31 October, 12:56

    any progress on the musicbrainz integration? when that is done most info in the wiki tags will be unnecessary.

    dalen – 31 October, 12:56
  6. grafnico
    31 October, 13:39

    Well then, look at the other bright side, you hadn’t moved in yet, so no electronics got flooded (I hope) ;)

    grafnico – 31 October, 13:39
  7. picaresque_
    31 October, 14:24

    Uhh, that privacy feature would be really nice, if it worked consistently: When I’m logged out, it works as long as my profile is displayed in English, but as soon as I switch to another language, the “Last tracks listened to” appear again. Pretty useless at that way :(

    picaresque_ – 31 October, 14:24
  8. chris
    31 October, 14:31

    as excited as you guys about that fingerprinting stuff :)

    chris – 31 October, 14:31
  9. Matt
    31 October, 14:50

    @picaresque_:

    Ooops, you’re right… we unfortunately have a 1-week translation cycle, which means any new features on the English site appear on the international sites a week later. (The privacy setting itself isn’t exposed yet on those sites either.)

    Please bear with us and the English-only privacy for a few days… it will go global soon!

    Matt – 31 October, 14:50
  10. PAStheLoD
    31 October, 15:17

    Hurray for the GoCam :)

    PAStheLoD – 31 October, 15:17
  11. Steven Gravell
    31 October, 15:43

    Hooray for GoCamFan

    Steven Gravell – 31 October, 15:43
  12. P-Werchowenskij
    31 October, 22:30

    Nice, I can hardly resist, to comment the game.

    P-Werchowenskij – 31 October, 22:30
  13. ace
    31 October, 23:12

    COOL.

    ace – 31 October, 23:12
  14. Mattias S
    31 October, 23:34

    I cant wait to see the results of the fingerprinting…

    Mattias S – 31 October, 23:34
  15. Liopic
    31 October, 23:50

    Nice!
    I used to play Go at the office… on my first day there I appeared with go board and I taught everybody the basics. So it’s funny to see another office with this brain entertainment. Maybe I should start thinking about moving to London.

    By the way, white position is hopeless :-/

    Liopic – 31 October, 23:50
  16. Steve
    1 November, 00:13

    He knows :p Think we’ll start fresh in the morning.

    It’s too bad the lights are off now, jonty needs to turn the updater off when he leaves the office.

    I’m looking forward to always being on http://www.last.fm/music/Dananananaykroyd with the just listened feature :) Though I’m on it each week anyways

    Steve – 1 November, 00:13
  17. Alan
    1 November, 00:26

    Really enjoying the just listened additions to the track and artist pages. Fun new way to surf the site and make new contacts.

    Alan – 1 November, 00:26
  18. P-Werchowenskij
    1 November, 11:25

    white position is hopeless?

    Bah, there’s still a little aji everywhere. White groups never die!

    P-Werchowenskij – 1 November, 11:25
  19. Claudia
    1 November, 13:08

    Wonderful new features :-D YAY!!! last.fm is the pure awesomeness.

    Claudia – 1 November, 13:08
  20. david
    1 November, 15:07

    why can’t i love in london =(

    david – 1 November, 15:07
  21. Steve
    1 November, 15:27

    When I applied for my job at Last.fm my covering letter/email said “I have loved in London for the last 6 months”. True story.

    Steve – 1 November, 15:27
  22. Pedro Santa
    1 November, 19:01

    GoCam lol! :D

    Pedro Santa – 1 November, 19:01
  23. goncalo
    1 November, 19:56

    Go championship NOW!

    goncalo – 1 November, 19:56
  24. Amr Hassan
    1 November, 20:09

    the fpclient works like magic :D
    just one more question, when it’s integrated with the last.fm client for future scrobbling, what’s gonna happen to the tracks that were scrobbled in the past? will they be fixed in any how? i hope they would..

    Amr Hassan – 1 November, 20:09
  25. Kwowo
    3 November, 13:38

    What about a ChessCam one day ? =D

    Kwowo – 3 November, 13:38
  26. FFI-IX-Player38
    3 November, 18:29

    I would it enjoy when you would bring back the overall top listeners. Or maybe add them beside the weekly listeners.

    But the current changes are also really nice. :D

    FFI-IX-Player38 – 3 November, 18:29
  27. seedling
    3 November, 23:53

    oh, last.fm. i love you.

    seedling – 3 November, 23:53
  28. gwalla
    4 November, 06:36

    Now you guys just need to find a way to integrate Go with the rest of the site. Games playable over PM, perhaps?

    gwalla – 4 November, 06:36
  29. gypsy_eyes1982
    4 November, 19:52

    the “just listened” thing is just great

    gypsy_eyes1982 – 4 November, 19:52
  30. gwalla
    5 November, 02:51

    Being able to use band metadata as if they were tags (with their own charts, radio, etc.) would be grand.

    gwalla – 5 November, 02:51
  31. Johan
    5 November, 04:09

    Please just bring back multiple artist radio. It was the one reason I had a subscription.

    Johan – 5 November, 04:09
  32. Adriaan
    5 November, 13:42

    Thanks for the recommendations magazine. Yesterday I ate sushi and my stomach muscles have been stiff since I jogged directly after eating the raw fish, and I didn’t sleep at all yesterday, and today I wrote a maths exam, but just receiving the magazine this morning made my day. It is nicely and simply designed. I hope you expand it a bit in the future.

    Thanks once again.

    Adriaan – 5 November, 13:42
  33. Antonio Fernandes
    5 November, 15:27

    Just listened + top Listeners = Fantastic

    What an amazing way for an artist to bild a fan list.

    Antonio Fernandes – 5 November, 15:27
  34. someonetookmyid
    5 November, 19:44

    GoCam is awesome. ;)

    someonetookmyid – 5 November, 19:44
  35. Mysticyx
    6 November, 11:29

    Maybe it’s an idea to use music descriptions, like Pandora does. Now don’t stop reading when I say Pandora, cause I can’t even listen to that site because I do not live in America and besides that, you’re site looks better, feels better and has a great idea: scrobling. BUT: Music like for example An Pierlé, which I find great, isn’t popular enough to be recommended to people who probably like it. The tags are something like Belgium, which is of course not a very good tag, you can’t tag music like Amerikan either. It’s way to big. Besides that, the influences of artists doesn’t stop by the border. I’m much more influenced by artists from the UK and the US, than artists from the Netherlands, where I come from. I think that works the same way with artists, they do not only listen to people from their own country. Thus, if you could add another way for recommending music, not only by listeners who like the same artists, but by the music itself, I think it would improve you’re site even more. But it’s great already, of course. Yes?

    Mysticyx – 6 November, 11:29
  36. Rico
    6 November, 14:02

    the new privacy settings are great (when they work in all lanuguages). but i would like to let others see my last scrobbled songs, but without the time they have been scrobbled!

    Rico – 6 November, 14:02
  37. Robert
    7 November, 15:50

    Hiding recent tracks is useless, when the “tracks played” counter is always updating …

    Also I want to hide my “Last seen”. Is that possible?

    bye, R.

    Robert – 7 November, 15:50
  38. Rico
    8 November, 16:36

    yep, without hiding “last seen” it’s all quite useless.

    Rico – 8 November, 16:36
  39. Stal
    8 November, 16:47

    Any plans for factbox mark-up for artists that are not bands? According to the Kate Nash factbox she was founded in ‘Harrow, London’. :|

    http://www.last.fm/music/Kate+Nash/+wiki

    Having tags like ‘[placeborn]’ ‘[yearborn]’, ‘[yeardied]’ and even ‘[bands from= to=]’ would be a great addition for artists that are not bands.

    Stal – 8 November, 16:47
  40. Nicholas
    9 November, 22:29

    The multiple artist radio with the similar artist cloud was great! Could we please have that back?!

    Nicholas – 9 November, 22:29
  41. wankers
    11 November, 20:22

    Kinda sucks that now, for the second Sunday in a row, you schmucks have rolled back playcounts of users for no apparent reason. Make a useful blog post and explain that.

    wankers – 11 November, 20:22
  42. anonymous
    12 November, 01:12

    Would it be possible to also differentiate between different artists with the same name, especially if their music is in different languages? For example, there is a Taiwanese Tank and an American Tank.

    anonymous – 12 November, 01:12
  43. Jonty
    12 November, 14:50

    RE playcounts –
    Russ posted about the issue on the forum here:
    http://www.last.fm/forum/21713/_/347619#f5186539

    It’s just a temporary glitch, nothing has been lost.

    —jonty

    Jonty – 12 November, 14:50
  44. Saliatahn
    14 November, 22:19

    View our web-page if AvantGarde black metal are interesting for you:

    http://www.lastfm.ru/music/OKSYMORON

    Saliatahn – 14 November, 22:19

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