Last.fm is one of the largest music social networks in the world. Using collaborative filters and elaborate algorithms, it is able to take all the music you listen to on your computer and iPod and get a sense of music that you like. It takes your music preferences and compares it with others so that you can be matched with people who have similar tastes and be recommended music that you might enjoy. Last.fm also offers ways for people to be connected as ‘friends’, join groups, find ‘neighbors’, attend events, write a music journal/blog, tag music, read artist bios, see top music charts, and learn how their taste in music stacks up against others. Essentially, all the content on Last.fm is generated by the users. This is a very powerful thing. Not only does it connect people in very important ways with something that they are passionate about but it also is revolutionizing the traditional business model of record labels. Here’s a taste of some of the points of interaction offered through Last.fm:
Here’s Last.fm’s main page for a given user. Here a user can see their friends, neighbors, music recommendations, and charts – all tailored to that specific user with her own specific tastes.
One of the most powerful feature of Last.fm is the ability for people to tag music any way they like. When they do this, they are constantly and collectively generating and organizing content and information in their own way. It becomes an extremelely powerful tool.
This is Last.fm’s ’shoutbox’ where people can leave you message on your main profile page. It’s similar to having a Facebook ‘wall’ where people can leave comments and provides a quick way for people to initiate discussions about music.
Here’s the ‘groups’ page where people with similar music tastes can join a group and discuss music and share information. Millions of groups exist for just about any kind of music, and new groups can be created at any time.
This friends module acts the same as it does in other common social networks where people can submit a ‘friend request’ and then be connected to you in a more exclusive way than other people in the social network.
This is perhaps one of the more powerful points of interaction that Last.fm offers. The ‘neighbors’ page is automatically generated to give you a list of other people in the network who have similar tastes to you. You can view their pages to learn of new music that you’d probably like and can also listen to the ‘neighbors radio’ station that will stream music that these people listen to. This is probably my favorite page in the entire network because it narrows down the network to create a more personal network that suits me.
Last.fm’s events page will list concerts and events in your area that match your music preferences. It will also list other people in the network that are attending the same show so that you can meet up and see who else in your community can share in your musical passions.
Lastly, we’ve this little ‘Taste-O-Meter’ module that automatically pops up on other people’s pages you view to show you how musically compatible you are with that person. It’s a good tool for finding your musical match online.
OK. Now for some more ’serious’ research…
Last.fm has been considered by many to be the big music social networking site that is revolutionizing the way people listen to, share, and consume music. According to the ‘List of Social Networks’ on Wikiepedia.org, over 15,000,000 users subscribe to Last.fm around the world, and this number continues to grow faster than other music social networks. What makes Last.fm so special? It’s based on what has been coined as ‘collaborative filtering’ (http://www.wired.com/culture/lifestyle/news/2003/07/59522). Special software known as the AudioScrobbler tracks all the music people listen to on their computers or iPods and compares this data with others in the network to provide each user with unique recommendations based on their tastes and similar tastes of other people. Each time a new band or artist is scrobbled that is not yet in Last.fm’s database, a page for that artist is automatically created so that it can be shared with others. Bands can upload their music for people to sample. Music videos can be viewed. Detailed artist pages offer in-depth information of albums and songs. Groups are formed. Neighbors are found. People keep journals to write about their feelings on certain songs. Events/concerts are listed and people can find out who else in the Last.fm network is attending such events. Aside from Last.fm’s sophisticated algorithms and dynamic pages that scream ‘Web 2.0’, it also offers a way to change how the entire music industry operates and how music is created.
One of the major influences that Last.fm has is its ability to provide the democratization of music. (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/6924150.stm). The generation and organization of information is all done by the users. Last.fm simply provides the platform on which people can organize themselves musically. Songs are tagged and tabulated based on choices by the users. Song and artist charts are counted based on the music that users listen to the most. None of this content is generated by Last.fm alone. It’s all done by users and in turn influences other users’ choices. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Last.fm). Because of this, users essentially choose what bands stay on top and create the filters through which certain music gets more attention and is recommended to other users.
Last.fm and other similar music social networks allow anybody to be a DJ and to get their music heard. With new technology readily available for anyone and everyone to use to create their own music content, these social networks give people a place to share their work and have an equal footing with more popular artists that dominate the traditional music industry (http://arts.guardian.co.uk/netmusic/story/0,,1939031,00.html). This is important for many reasons. First, it encourages people to be creative and construct content that they might not otherwise have been made because there was simply no point in creating something if nobody would hear it. The more people create, the more diverse our culture becomes and the more options we have in terms of music. Secondly, it challenges the way that the music industry controls the market. Any individual with a small garage band can now be in the same pool and any major artist. Third, it instills a new passion and fervor into music lovers who now have access to more choices, more customization, and access to more people to share this passion with both online and offline.
One major impact that music social networks like Last.fm are having on the world is the way they are revolutionizing the music industry. The everyday person is now the most powerful marketing tool that a record label can have. But this will only work for labels if they change their business model to allow for their content to be more open and exposed to people to use as they may. Essentially this all means less control for the record labels and more control in the people’s hands. Before these social networks, it was up to record companies to filter what people might like to hear and then have music published. But now the model is completely reversed – now anything and everything is published and left to the people to filter on their own (http://www.wired.com/culture/lifestyle/news/2003/07/59522). And the people are hungry. Music lovers will gladly take all the music they can get their hands on and weed out what they like or don’t like. All they need is for record labels to cut them a bit of slack and give them more free access to music so they can pass their judgment. While this seems like tricky business for the record companies, in the end it is believed to help them more than harm them since more people will be exposed to their music and can contribute in the promotion of their artists (http://www.shirky.com/writings/music_flip.html). Not to mention, these social networks provide great marketing research for the record companies.
One last point to mention is how these music social networks are also affecting other social networks. Applications like iLike can now be integrated into Facebook to share information about music preferences. MySpace allows users to embed songs into their profile page which serve as a reflection or extension of their portrayed personalities. MySpace also provides a special music section where millions of bands/artists can upload samples of their songs, share information, and have a chance for better exposure than they otherwise could get. A major point of customization of many social networks is the ability to install widgets on their page that stream their music data from Last.fm. In doing things like this, it allows for people to be connected in more important and interesting ways. Such applications make it easier for people to share their passions and interests with others which in turn leads to more connections between people, more opportunities for artists, and more intricate ways for people to convey their identity to others. Last.fm is a grassroots approach at its finest and is truly shifting the way people connect and organize themselves through music.
