
Like.fm (YC W11) Is A Social Network For Tracking Songs - chrischen
http://techcrunch.com/2011/03/07/like-fm?real=one
======
physcab
At Grooveshark, we have a feature that does this and it works amazingly well.
If you click on the people icon at the upper left hand corner of the screen
you'll see a feed of what your friends are currently listening to on
Grooveshark. The feature has become so useful, that I often discover new music
to listen to through it much more so than algorithmic recommendations. Social
recommendations are indeed the best way to discover new music. In fact, one
interesting example of this is when one of our co-workers began recommending
everyone listen to Mumford and Sons about 10 months ago. Within a month,
everyone's feeds were filled with Mumford and Sons playlists. I remember
looking at my feed and thinking "Who the hell are Mumford And Sons". Turns out
they're awesome and got super popular.

~~~
whatusername
10 months?

[http://www.abc.net.au/triplej/hottest100/09/countdown/cd_lis...](http://www.abc.net.au/triplej/hottest100/09/countdown/cd_list.htm)
<\-- That was the 2009 top list.

~~~
physcab
Those songs definitely weren't the top songs in 2009 (globally). Here's the
billboard from 2009. [http://www.billboard.com/charts-year-
end/hot-100-songs?year=...](http://www.billboard.com/charts-year-
end/hot-100-songs?year=2009#/charts-year-end/hot-100-songs?year=2009).

~~~
whatusername
I don't think the billboard charts are global. For Australia -- They overall
for the year charted at 52 in 2009 and 8 in 2010 (In terms of sales anyway).

From wikipedia: "The band's debut album, Sigh No More, was released in the
United Kingdom in October 2009, and February 2010 in the United States." It's
nice to see Australia getting a media release before the US for a change. :)

2010) [http://www.aria.com.au/pages/aria-charts-end-of-year-
charts-...](http://www.aria.com.au/pages/aria-charts-end-of-year-charts-
top-100-singles-2010.htm) 2009) [http://www.aria.com.au/pages/aria-charts-end-
of-year-charts-...](http://www.aria.com.au/pages/aria-charts-end-of-year-
charts-top-100-singles-2009.htm)

------
pclark
A lot of people are being rather critical of this launch, which in itself is a
rather mean spirited thing to do considering a) anyone launching _anything_
should be applauded, b) and the 20 year old solo founder got into ycombinator
with this product, c) data porn startups should be fascinating to hackers.
Almost 20% of the comments here, and one of the most upvoted comments here is
calling it a clone.

I believe that Like.FM can and will kill Last.FM. The reason is because
Last.FM is in the corporate doldrums, and since Last.FM got acquired a few
fundamental things happened: Facebook & Twitter. Last.FM has little to no
integration with these services, seriously, imagine a social service in 2011
that entirely ignores these networks.

I love Last.FM, I have been a user for over 5 years
(<http://www.last.fm/user/Hejog>) but I am infuriated to no end at the lack of
innovation.

Last.FM has forgotten its roots of being a startup, and in this process lost
the one thing products need to relentlessly focus on - delighting users. If
Like.FM can focus on that, they will beat Last.FM.

The major roadblock with beating Last.FM is that their API is a very
defensible beachhead - I refuse to use music services that do not scrobble, as
data is worthless if you only see 90% of your listening habits.

Chris needs to run around SV and convince everyone to let him integrate his
APIs with their music service. (seriously, isn't Earbits in the same batch as
you?)

~~~
chrischen
I've actually found Last.fm's APIs and its ubiquity to be a plus. I've
implemented Like.fm's tracking APIs to be identical to that of Last.fm's. So
new player implementations usually only require minor, or no, modifications by
me to have it working with Like.fm.

------
iuguy
_Founder Chris Chen says that its emphasis on song tracking is what separates
the Like.fm from streaming services like Last.fm and music buying networks
like Apple’s Ping (which he describes as “a step above adding share buttons to
the iTunes store.”) says Chen “Like.fm isn’t meant to be a destination music
site, it’s meant to be a place to find songs that you like. It’s not meant to
be a Pandora but a compliment to it, it’s a place for sound discovery, where
you go and listen to music.”_

It sounds to me like he's describing Last.FM perfectly. Last.FM is a social
network for finding new music based on the songs you play/scrobble.

I think with Pandora and Last.FM already well established and Grooveshark
certainly doing fine I struggle to see the room in this market and what
Like.fm provides that's different. Even the name sounds like a rip off of
last.fm.

Maybe there is something here that the others don't/can't provide, but I'm not
seeing it - anyone have any ideas?

------
chrischen
So currently I'm the only person working on the site, and it would be awesome
if I could get some help. So if anyone is interested in working on Like.fm
(with compensation) you can contact me at chris@like.fm.

------
GeneralMaximus
I know this is offtopic, but I'll throw it out here anyway. My Last.fm account
is 3 or 4 years old. I was 16 then, I'm 20 now. My tastes today are radically
different from what they were 4 years ago. 4 years ago I used to listen to
KoRn, Marilyn Manson and Eminem, and nothing much besides. Predictably enough,
they were the top 3 artists in my Last.fm charts for a long time. Now my
tastes have not only changed, they've become more varied. Some of the artists
I listen to now have pushed my old favorites down the charts, but the old
favorites still appear the top 10, and Marilyn Manson is still #1.

Sadly, Last.fm insists on listing heavy metal and rap artists as my top
recommendations. I'd kill for a music discovery service that could take my
changing tasted into account.

~~~
jokermatt999
You can always browse the "similar artists" section on individual artist's
pages. There's a "similar songs" feature as well, but I've found it to be
fairly weak.

------
norova
The signup process is fantastic. I had zero trouble whatsoever completing the
registration and installing the web & desktop clients. Streamlined = good
stuff.

I can't tell you how pleased I was when I clicked the Facebook Connect button
and didn't see a request for permission to post to my wall. Thumbs up for not
needing that.

------
rabidsnail
If you're going to make a last.fm clone you could be a little more subtle
about it.

~~~
alanh
Say, penultimate.fm?

~~~
chrischen
Hey what do you know: <http://penultimate.fm>

------
ohkine
I noted that the article mentions that there is a lot that is 'coming soon',
so maybe this is all in the works and i'm being redundant but:

I have to say that i'm not super impressed with how the profiles are set up. I
really like Last.fm's profile pages because they provide a huge amount of
information at a glance, and they do Like.fm's stated job of being 'a place to
find songs that you like' very well by giving you compatibility ratings and
showing top artists, top tracks, &c.

Meanwhile, the profiles on Like.fm are barely a step up from a text log of
songs you've played. There's no information at all aside from that, just song
a, song b, song c. I am not sure how this is meant to help me discover music i
like -- there's no context or anything.

On another note, i find the design/layout of the site somewhat lacking as
well. There's a lot of unnecessary white space and the design doesn't seem to
have any coherent branding or theme (Last.fm has a relatively attractive and
memorable red-and-white thing going on, for instance) -- it's just very
dreary.

I hope that wasn't too harsh, it was meant to be constructive. I should add
that i did sign up, in anticipation of improvements -- i am _very_ interested
in moving off of Last.fm, it's just that so far there's not much to tempt me.

~~~
chrischen
So your summary page will rank your recently top played songs and group them
by artists. It's supposed to reflect your top music within the last 1-3 days
so it can keep up with what you like _right now_. I know the site may still
look a little bare and even unpolished but I'm the only person working on it
right now but I'll be hiring soon.

And as far as more quantitative stats and similarity ratings, that's all in
the works.

~~~
ohkine
Brilliant. Good luck :)

------
mlinsey
Huge congrats Chris! Being a 20 year old solo founder is seriously impressive.

To everyone hating for how this borrows too heavily from last.fm: I think that
you'll find soon enough that there's a serious opportunity in picking up where
an acquired but now stagnating startup left off. Startups are so much more
agile that this might turn out to be a consistently repeatable strategy.

~~~
devan
He's 20?

Sweet, he's given me hope then, I had this feeling I wouldn't have a chance
because im 19 (almost 20 - in april).

Good luck Chris, and make sure not to overbloat the app with features (like
last fm)

Devan

------
lachyg
I misread the title as Last.fm there!

~~~
georgemcbay
I have a hard time reading it as anything other than Last.fm even after
knowing it isn't Last.fm.

Wehn you cnodiser how we sacn wdors scuh taht the bignennig and end are by far
the most iportmant deriffentaiotrs, the nmiang is annoyingly similiar, IMO.

~~~
ericd
Nice demo :-) I hadn't put my finger on why exactly I always read like.fm as
last.fm, but I think you hit it on the head.

------
MJR
_"It’s not meant to be a Pandora but a compliment to it, it’s a place for
sound discovery, where you go and listen to music.”"_

Right, because I don't go and listen to music when I visit Pandora,
Grooveshark, etc.

~~~
chrischen
I think the transcribing got a little messed up, but what I meant was that
Like.fm isn't meant to be a listening destination. It's not meant to compete
with Pandora, Rdio, or iTunes. It's supposed to work with content delivery
platforms, aggregate the data, and the ability to play via youtube on the site
is simply a convenience feature to aid in discovery.

~~~
rabidsnail
Last.fm didn't let you listen to music through them at all in the beginning;
they were just a sharing and recommendation service. And for a lot of people,
that's what they still are. They also are an affiliate for content delivery
platforms. They also let you listen to music via youtube on their site. They
also aggregate metadata from other sites like wikipedia. How do you
differentiate yourself from them?

~~~
chrischen
Facebook did a lot of the same things other social networks did too on a high
level. But you can't look at things only on a high level or else they all look
the same. This is a preview of what's to come, since this site is new, and
we're a much smaller company than Last.fm.

------
joshsharp
My startup blaster.fm which I submitted for review recently -
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2275032> \- does a similar sort of thing
with more of a social bent. It leverages last.fm's idea of scrobbling, so
there's no need for new ways to track what you're listening to.

Best of luck though, guys.

~~~
bootload
_"... the service uses a Chrome, Firefox and Safari extension to automatically
track what you’re listening to on YouTube, Pandora, Rdio, Meemix, Grooveshark
and Earbits and a desktop client to track what you’re listening to on Winamp,
iTunes, MediaMonkey or Windows Media Player. ..."_

The missing bit has been video (youtube) and various downloads in mp4 format
that I play in xine, totem (linux). Is there anyway to capture in the desktop
client in windows (WMP)?

 _"... My startup blaster.fm ..."_

looks like you beat my tweet. The same applies to blaster.fm. Stuff that's not
in mp3 that I play mp4,flv isn't captured unless I write my own client.

------
alexophile
Last summer, I remember saying Rdio should put together an offer for like.fm -
looks like that has gotten more expensive. (nice work)

------
anonymoushn
Why did I have to log in with facebook if you were going to give me an account
I can't get into using my facebook account?

Edit: Also, the chrome extension seems somewhat bad at picking out the song
and artist from YouTube videos. I tried to leave feedback about this, but your
feedback form doesn't have a submit button.

------
rome
404 Error file "/rome/rome/rome" not found. We sincerely apologize for any
inconvenience this may have caused you. Rest assured there will be a layoff
with extreme prejudice.

....that was my bad. Please no layoffs.

~~~
chrischen
Can you tell me where you got to that url?

~~~
rome
I clicked on my profile, history, then I clicked on my name. It just says
loading now... ??

------
retlehs
This seems pretty cool, but I use the Pandora desktop client (paid for Pandora
One.. hated the ads) or foobar2000 as my player and neither of those are
supported :(

I haven't used Last.fm in years and this is very appealing, but Like.fm just
doesn't offer a way to track what I listen to right now.

~~~
chrischen
Foobar2000 is actually next in line for windows to be supported.

~~~
retlehs
Awesome, thanks. I just subscribed to the blog for updates and will definitely
be using it once it's out.

<http://blog.like.fm/> (I can't find a link to this on your site)

------
janv
So, if the scrobbling API is the same like Last.fm's, there's slight chance
some client (player plugins) could support Like.fm thanks to Libre.fm (yay,
Micronesian registrar must be very profitable). For example, in Quod Libet's
QLScrobbler plugin you can choose to which URL to scrobble, instead of
post.audioscrobbler.com you can use turtle.libre.fm or any other URL. And
there's much more clients -
<http://bugs.foocorp.net/projects/librefm/wiki/Clients>

Just give us URL to point our scrobblers to.

------
rome
Great! I'm loving the iTunes support. It's how I do most of my listening. I'd
like to see friend recommendations based on listening habits. I'm rome on
like.fm, add me if you want to add me.

------
davidmathers
Signed up. If you send me an email when mpd support is added then I'll give it
a try. I could check back in a few months, but I'll probably forget.

~~~
chrischen
Sure. I will let you know.

------
jfeldstein2
Why all the custom extensions/tracking software, and emphasis on compatibility
with the last.fm api when you could get the same data by just pulling from
last.fm?

Data ownership, maybe, but it also felt like a very heavy onboarding process.
"Welcome! Now install these two browser widgets and some desktop client..."

------
tomwans
I have totally been working on a site that would recommend music based on what
your friends have been listening to. Similar to this, except it didn't have
the great idea of tracking everything you listen to online through extensions.
This is such a great idea. Congratulations guys!

------
philcrissman
Mini-ask HN: Why link to a techcruch article when you could just link to the
startup's website? I'm not trying to be ornery, sincerely asking.

I'm not interested in reading a techcrunch article about a new startup. I'd
rather go straight to the startup and look at it.

------
Wolf_Larsen
Thanks for that signup process.

How hard is it to extend this to some linux apps like Amarok or VLC? Is that
in your development list, or are the programs too sparse?

~~~
Wolf_Larsen
Chris replied via his live support that he has an API and some support for
Exaile (a linux player). Sick!

~~~
chrischen
Yes the API is identical to Last.fm's api and there is a hacked Last.fm
scrobbler for exaile.

------
kindlyviking
I think I'd choose blip.fm over like.fm, personally.

------
melissamiranda
Love it. Runs in the background, I don't have to do any work at all. When I
need it, it's updated. Nice work keeping it simple.

------
kilian
Ha! Too cool Chris, I had no idea you were in YC W11. Too cool to see it go so
well with Like.fm :)

~~~
chrischen
Yea your lyrics button is still there :)

------
kevingao1
Congrats Chris!

~~~
chrischen
Thanks!

------
jetaries
Very nice!

------
VictorHo
congrats on the launch Chris! looks awesome!

------
visakhcr
The negative with Like.fm is that I have to install a Like client on my laptop
to track my music habits. I don't want to clutter my laptop with unnecessary
software.

~~~
chrischen
The client only runs when your music player is running. And it's very
lightweight. You can think of it as an addon to your music player.

