

Show HN: My social music app - chrischen
http://like.fm

======
pclark
I should disclose that I am a massive music junkie. 94,000 plays on Last.FM to
date[1] - it wasn't clear what the bet I was taking was with Like.FM (good
domain) what _is_ it? how is it different to Last.FM? Seems like its this:

> Merge their top tracks intelligently into the ultimate list of new songs

Sooo why not a Last.FM app?

Just my brief $0.02 cents, feel free to reach out to me (or reply here) as I
am obsessed with this space.

edit: some thoughts...

1) nice simple sign up

2) omg is that ajax logging in? always wondered why people don't offer that,
cute.

3) the player on the right is the right concept but wrong implementation - I
like how hypem.com has done it. takes up less space.

4) still not entirely clear what the value proposition is - what does it do?
_specifically_ what value does it bring?

After playing with service for a few moments and reading your comments, I can
imagine this being an _epic_ service that acts as a "Last.FM for Online
Content" via scrobbler/bookmarklet, and tracks what i've recently
watched/listened to - just my $0.0.2

[1]: <http://www.last.fm/user/Hejog>

~~~
chrischen
Honestly, when I started doing this I didn't even know Last.fm showed your
play history. So I didn't know Last.fm already had some of the features. And
before I started I had extremely limited exposure to Last.fm.

I tried their Mac client once and it was a horrible experience (it was a
windowed app whereas Like.fm is a menulet in OS X).

I remember it being an additional layer on top of how you normally listen to
music (hearting songs). Like.fm uses existing user interface to generate your
top tracks (rate songs directly from iTunes + frequency of play).

But most importantly, none of my friends, or anyone I knew, uses Last.fm (and
I believe 2 out of 300 of my facebook friends have the Like.fm app installed).
So I figured there's space to make a way for non-music-enthusiasts to share
music info with each other. That's why Like.fm is really passive. You just
play songs from iTunes like you normally do, rate them like you normally do
(if you do). Then on Like.fm I guess what your current top tracks are, and
share your play history with other people.

Also Like.fm doesn't require you to play hundreds of songs to build up a
robust profile. The top played list on your profile is meant to represent your
_recent_ top tracks. So you just have to play some of your current top songs
and it _should_ be accurate. Recommendations will be based on who _you_ choose
to follow, so it's not directly dependent on training the system with your
playback data. However the one problem at the moment may be that there aren't
enough users to follow.

~~~
pclark
ahh, just noticed a problem for me - I've transitioned to using Spotify
instead of iTunes... Service sounds intriguing though - i would recommend
integration with Last.FM for scrobblers.

Also, there are tons of 3rd party scrobblers for Mac. iScrobbler is pretty
decent.

I don't meant to sound negative. I think Last.FM has sewn up the "data" space
(eg: what I'm playing, top artists) - but it sucks for recommendations,
social, and everything else.

It isn't clear to me how your service is different to Last.FM in terms of
setup. EG: I'm not a Last.FM user ... am I going to use your service, instead?
Saying only 2 of my friends use x service _so I made a competitor for them to
use_ seems like mildly false logic. In these spaces I'd like to see something
that works around the barrier to entry (requiring a scrobbler of some sort)

~~~
chrischen
That's exactly where I'm going to hit hard: social.

Integrating with Last.fm is a great idea. I honestly never event thought of
that.

~~~
pclark
check out Spotify if you can, they've made sharing tracks super easy - but
suck at the Last.FM bits.

As a music junkie I use a few services:

Last.FM for the data (on me & friends (but not Facebook friends...))

Spotify for playback and sharing songs to friends (but not Last.FM friends -
Facebook friends)

Hype Machine for _hot_ music recently (scrobbled to Last.FM)

The _huge_ weak spot is recommendations. Where do I go for artists like
Eminem? I currently use the Spotify related artists page, boy does it suck.

Actually, I also use What.CD for music recommendations..

This is what What.CD suggests for Eminem: <http://grab.by/5MLs>

and this is what Spotify suggests for Eminem: <http://grab.by/5MLu>

Neither brilliant, honestly.

So yes - recommendations - valuable. Powered by my friends, what's hot, and
algo for similar. Make a Pandora Radio minus the Radio bit, sounds useful.
Maybe a weekly digest of similar artists I'll enjoy based on what I listened
to this week.

~~~
chrischen
I think artist recommendations is a different beast from user recommendations.
Recommending similar users is something relatively easy and the main roadblock
right now is there not being enough users.

But if I go into artist recommendations (as opposed to general new song
recommendation and recommending other users), I'd take the same approach and
do something much more dynamic than a fixed list of similar artists. So
perhaps taking the subset of users who like Eminem A LOT and taking their top
tracks under the same genre, merging them (as if you followed them), and
providing that as a list of similar trending artists.

------
bkudria
Great idea, except I think my friend have horrible taste in music. Top 100
billboards are filled with popular music, not good music.

~~~
chrischen
Songs will be recommended indirectly from other people on like.fm via the
follow feature. So you can follow everyone, and eventually I will have in
place user recommendations (recommend other users for you to follow).

I know that friends != music friends, which is why you don't have to be
friends on the site to follow (you can follow anyone). The only other problem
is finding other people to follow, which is something I'm working very hard to
solve.

~~~
pclark
just a random data point, but I'd recommend either ignoring bkudria (no
offence!) or going full hog on a solution - in my experience people are black
or white about social recommendations, and it isn't worth spending the
resources to convert the people to the service. Focus on people that want it.

------
BrandonM
One "bug" that seems like it would be hard to fix is normalizing the volume.
Linkin Park's _New Divide_ was substantially louder than Neon Trees's
_Animal_.

The site looks good and I get the idea, but I'm not sure exactly how useful it
is for regular listening. It seems to me that it's designed to play one song
at a time? Personally, I have my own music library that I ranked and then
listen to mostly on random. Sometimes I'll be in the mood to hear an album or
an artist, and I'll play that. I have several friends that listen exclusively
to Pandora.

The point is, I and everyone I know basically put on music we like and then go
about our business, pausing only occasionally to switch to another album or
thumbs-up/thumbs-down a song. Sitting there and consciously "discovering"
music is just not something that I know anyone in my circle to do.

~~~
chrischen
Autoplay is something I'm planning to add, mainly to complement the merged top
tracks from your followers (so that it can auto play the top tracks of people
you follow).

The ability to play music on the site right now however is a convenience
thing. You can browse a friend's profile and check up on what they're
listening to. And I figured you'll eventually pull up youtube to listen to one
of those songs, why not just integrate that into the site directly.

I guess at the moment, until I get auto play integrated, I'm targeting more of
the people who listen to their own iTunes library and occasionally try to find
some new songs to add to their library.

------
photon_off
Someone mentioned that the "iframe must go" -- I thought it was fine. I'm on
1280x1024.

Besides that, here are my initial thoughts:

I didn't explore the site enough to figure out what it did, beyond find music
on YouTube and play it. I understand it can track other people's iTunes and
WinAmps, but I'm not really interested in that. I find listening to ShoutCast
channels and Pandora adequate, and I'm not convinced this service could up the
ante.

I was impressed by how quick it was, that the forward and back buttons worked,
and the overall design was pleasing. Visually, it looks like your site can be
a serious competitor in your space.

That's pretty much my unfiltered first impression. Hope it helped.

~~~
chrischen
Thanks. You got the gist of it. I can't really target the Pandora user until I
get a viable auto play mechanism.

However if you listen to internet radio from WinAmp or iTunes, Like.fm can
keep track of the history so if you want to play a song again you can do that
from the site.

------
dmix
The iframe on the side _has_ to go. It looks very out of place. Maybe try
something like extension.fm's [1] player that is more unobtrusive.

Also the layout doesn't work well with smaller screens. The margins are cut
off on my 13" MBP [2]. The width is >1200px. It should be 1000px max.

1\. <http://extension.fm>

2\.
[http://dl.dropbox.com/u/533753/Screen%20shot%202010-08-06%20...](http://dl.dropbox.com/u/533753/Screen%20shot%202010-08-06%20at%208.03.34%20PM.png)

~~~
chrischen
It's actually not an iframe, or a frame at all. The site uses no frames,
except for the facebook stuff. I've actually gone through multiple designs and
have tried the player on top of the site and on the bottom.

I've actually never tested it with small screens so thanks for bringing that
up.

~~~
dmix
> It's actually not an iframe, or a frame at all.

Well there is a fixed position CSS box on the right with the main panel w/
overflow scrolling, so its just like an iframe.

Maybe its the small screen size, but it crowds up the layout.

------
znt
Here's a bug, I tried to listen to "OMG by Usher Featuring will.i.am" through
billboard top 100 and it says "Embedding this video is disabled by its owner".

Very cool app though.

~~~
chrischen
That's weird since I tell the YouTube API to only return embedable videos.
I'll look into it.

EDIT: I'm not getting that error. Is it still happening?

------
chrischen
This is the first time I've shown this to a (hopefully) large audience. So if
you have any comments, suggestions, or if you've found a bug, please let me
know here or email chris@like.fm.

You guys can check out a sample profile: <http://like.fm/chris> (it's mine).

------
endlessvoid94
Yeah, I'm confused. What is it? I downloaded the iTunes app and it...doesn't
do anything. Huh? Is it like a scrobbler?

Why should I use your interface when I have my music on my laptop?

~~~
chrischen
Yes, it's like Last.fm's audio scrobbler.

It's a lightweight daemon that just sends your current iTunes track to
Like.fm.

Then you just play songs in iTunes like normal, and rate songs in iTunes, and
then it will show your current track, history, and top tracks on your Like.fm
profile. You can also add that profile as a tab in your Facebook profile (as
pictured on the home page).

I really didn't expect the MVP to be so confusing. Can you help me find better
way to explain it?

~~~
endlessvoid94
Yeah I guess I understand. What niche does it fill? How is it different from
Last.fm or Rdio? Or is it just latecomer?

~~~
chrischen
Like.fm isn't meant to replace iTunes as a place where you can play music. So
it doesn't compete with Rdio at all. The music is just sourced from YouTube,
so anyone can do that. The ability to play music is a convenience feature.

My main goal with Like.fm is to have a music app where you can publish what
you've listened to that isn't targeted at music enthusiasts (2 out of almost
300 facebook friends have a last.fm app installed). You can follow people and
merge top tracks. It's extremely passive (no need to change music listening
behavior) so it's easy to get started. Really you just install the desktop
client and go about doing your music listening business. And when you want to
peek at your friend's music just check out their profile or their facebook. If
you want new songs, theoretically, the merged top tracks stream will have best
new songs for you.

Passivity is key to Like.fm. It's not a niche community of music lovers. It's
designed to layer over your regular listening habits, and grab some
interesting info to share with people.

~~~
endlessvoid94
Also, I didn't even notice the "menulet" in my menu bar until I read it on
another comment. The app just seemed to have a preferences bar. You should
tell the user about what you've installed.

