

LastFM removing some ability to personalize listening experience. - timmaah
http://www.last.fm/stationchanges2010

======
wanderr
Groooveshark employee here, so excuse me for the shameless plug. ;) We love
last.fm but I've always thought it was more for learning about artists and
discovering new ones...and of course tracking everything you listen to and
seeing what your friends are listening to. They aren't primarily a streaming
music service and cutting those features probably makes it easier for them to
cut streaming and licensing costs by being counted purely as a online radio
service.

Grooveshark, on the other hand, has the primary focus of letting you search
for and listen to whatever you want, but frankly our radio feature isn't as
good. So if you want radio with limited control, use last.fm, if you want to
listen to what you want to listen to and notghing else, use Grooveshark. :)

~~~
joshfinnie
I have found this out with my experiments with Grooveshark. The radio feature
is TERRIBLE! It takes about 15 minutes before it starts repeating songs; there
have been multiple instances where there's no suggestions; it plays bands that
you already disliked (or frowned, I guess).

</rant>

Make your radio feature better and you would have a KILLER app!

sincerely,

a paying grooveshark user

~~~
wanderr
I agree, radio is probably our weakest area. We try very hard not to play
duplicates, but our underlying data is very messy since most of our content
comes from users. Better recs and better deduping are high on my wishlist.

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metabrew
DMCA compliance, or at least DMCA-as-interpreted-by-various-labels compliance.

Shame about loved tracks, but the "my library" station is the best, and that
will still work.

~~~
samstokes
I think it's more likely just an attempt to reduce their license fees.

The music licensing societies (at least in the UK) have different classes of
license, at different price points, and licenses which allow "interactive use"
are much more expensive. The distinction is (IANAL) about whether or not the
user has detailed control over what tracks they listen to, and in what order.

The features they're removing sound a lot like "interactive use":

    
    
      * Loved Tracks Radio: streaming your list of loved tracks
    
      * Playlists: streaming a list of tracks you've chosen for a playlist
    
      * Personal Tag Radio: streaming a list of artists, albums or tracks that you have tagged

~~~
russss
Yes, it's an interactive/non-interactive distinction in play. (DMCA has become
a synonym for "non-interactive" in the industry.)

Last.fm has always argued that these radio modes were non-interactive, but the
labels have clearly got the better of them.

------
storm
My understanding is that anything that allows the user to choose what specific
tracks they want to hear is deemed "interactive" by the industry, and costs an
awful lot more than "non-interactive". "Non-interactive" appears to mean
streams which the user can only broadly determine the content of (i.e. genre
or like-artist 'stations'), can't allow skipping over tracks too aggressively,
and who knows what other restrictions.

I don't have any idea as to how big of a difference in licensing fees we're
talking about here, and I know it's very hard to make a buck in this sphere
with so many vampires in the picture. But not paying up for interactive seems
like a really bad call on last.fm's part (and/or suggests that they are in
pretty rough shape as profits go). The list of things they're removing is
essentially a list of "all the reasons why I might be interested in using
last.fm".

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jdp23
Unless there's something I'm missing, the headline here seems a little
exaggerated.

~~~
timmaah
I guess it is. They appear to be removing all the reasons I signed up for
lastfm and the main way I use it.

* Library and recommended stations remain

~~~
jdp23
Yeah from the article it really looks like one of those "screw you our long-
time customer" actions disguised as a bland update. Are other people irritated
too?

"last.fm removing all the reasons I signed up" would have been a great
headline.

~~~
anedisi
you are right. i loved last.fm and was gladlly paying my month subscription.
Now that they are removing useful functionality im not standing behind that
company.

i guess grooveshark deserves a chance.

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omlu
Not all ability, you still have tags and artists. But not personal tracks you
have tagged and your loved tracks radio, i will miss my loved tracks.

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samps
This doesn't seem to affect the (free) "My Library" station.

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jtth
Paying lastfm user here. Won't be come November 17th. The only reason I pay is
for my loved tracks, to stream anywhere on anyone's laptop.

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mustpax
See also: Caldwell's talk from Startup School on the challenges facing music
startups

[http://techcrunch.com/2010/10/20/imeem-founder-dalton-
caldwe...](http://techcrunch.com/2010/10/20/imeem-founder-dalton-caldwells-
must-see-talk-on-the-challenges-facing-music-startups/)

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Delts
I'm a heavy lastFM user and yet used none of these functions that they are
removing. For me my iPod/netbook fills the role of loved tracks and playlists.
I'd rather not waste bandwidth streaming tracks which I already have on
various devices.

~~~
jtth
Scrobbling isn't very heavy. Unless you're paying, I wouldn't call you a heavy
user.

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lhnz
It's odd that they would do this. They should have ramped up the price of the
subscription for some of those features instead.

