

Like.fm is how Apple Ping should work - pclark
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13526_3-20015614-27.html

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ugh
Or good old last.fm. Funny story: all that talk about Ping [+] got me to
resurrect my old last.fm account and to start scrobbling again.

[+] I tested it and it was awful. I actually like iTunes and buy all my music
there but Ping is just an abomination.

~~~
dkasper
Like.fm != Last.fm

I have no idea about Like.fm since I've never used it, but I agree that
Last.fm is better than Ping for now. However, I think that since Ping just
comes with iTunes it will be able to garner a much larger userbase, which
could make it much more valuable as Ping itself improves. Last.fm is just a
little bit too nerdy/difficult for a lot of people to deal with.

~~~
chrischen
Yea that was my reason for making Like.fm. I didn't like all the fragmented
3rd party clients. After you sign up for Last.fm it doesn't even take you to
the client download page. It really made it hard for someone not really into
it all.

I wanted Like.fm to be dead simple install and forget. You don't need to
"love" tracks, you can just rate directly from iTunes like you normally do (if
you do). And since my user base would be small, I bring Like.fm to the user
base via the Facebook tab.

I think someone commented before that the trick is to get the average non-
enthusiast user to install a program to monitor your music. Well if tech can't
be made easier to use then mother's and grandma's wouldn't be using iPads
today! So Like.fm is your less nerdy, easier to setup social music site.

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kilian
Congrats to Chris! I actually integrated like.fm with <http://lystener.com>
today and Chris has been super helpful with building the right API's for me to
use.

Both ping and last.fm have a lot of potential when it comes to social
integration but neither seem to focus on that. I hope like.fm will win based
on the nice facebook integration and ease of use, but they'll have to work on
their on-site user experience quite a lot before getting there.

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chrischen
Thanks Peter!

And also I'm looking for help: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1662965>.

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akamaka
I love how the music player in the bottom right corner of like.fm stays open
as you navigate between different pages.

Does anyone know how they did this?

Edit: To clarify my question, this is probably done with AJAX, but like.fm
also updates the browser URL bar, without using a hash anchor fragment like
gmail. Any idea how that's done?

~~~
bmelton
Without looking, one easy way to do it would be to AJAX the entire site, such
that when you click on a link, it loads the entire content panel dynamically,
while keeping the player div active. Basically, reload everything on the page
except the player, but never actually take the user to another page.

~~~
akamaka
Right. The next step is to change the URL bar in the browser with each new
page, so that history, bookmarking, and link-sharing work properly.

I've seen this done using anchor fragments (in other words, only changing the
part of the URL after the hash symbol). That's how gmail does it
(gmail.com/foo#inbox).

This site seems to have some other method that doesn't require the hash. I've
never seen this on any website, so I would really love to know how its done!!

~~~
bmelton
(Sorry to respond to such an old item, but I just got the chance to look)

I don't know what browser you're using, or if they're doing something to mask
the URL that they're using, but in IE7, the url IS updated on anchor
fragments. The links themselves point to something canonical looking (e.g.,
like.fm/user/home), but when you actually click on it, the url you end up at
is clearly implemented using anchor fragments (i.e., like.fm/#/user/home).

For what it's worth, there's a bug in it on IE7, such that if I keep clicking
the same link (even after I get there), it malforms, and keeps malforming with
each click (though the pages still seem to work) --
like.fm/user/home#r//user//user//user//user/home

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niccolop
I think spotify is also pretty close to Ping.

~~~
ThomPete
Just much much better.

In fact ping would probably have been fine if they had had FB connect up and
running.

It works like a charm in spotify and they don't seem to use any kind last.fm
neighbors thingimagic.

~~~
MC27
I'm just glad Spotify has last.fm scrobbling built in.

