I play my tunes through Winamp and have the Last.fm plugin installed so it uploads my track data for each song I listen to to the site...then the last.fm site recommends similar music based on what other stuff other people listen to who also listen to what I listen to...
Works pretty well, but one day I would really like to do a mashup that better allows someone to start at a certain band and branch away to newer artists as they explore similar bands. Just not enough time in the day....
huzzah for last.fm's rec engine. even with a wide spread of genres, it recommends very well. the configurable level of obscurity in the engine is pretty great, too.
agreed. I think it works so well because they didn't try to beat the system with crazy advanced prediction algorithms but instead just harnessed the listening habits and preferences of people who use the service. That's why I really want to work on a mashup of Last.fm, probably Seeqpod, and a link to a place to buy tracks if someone has that desire, all wrapped in a design I've thought of that I think would be pretty cool to use
how about generating mixtapes of recommended music w/ download links to itunes, emusic, etc? last.fm lets you play your recommendations, but you could use their api to get streamable tracks, mix in other music apis for recommendation QA or range, and maybe annotate entries w/ data from onellama (radio station api).
Works pretty well, but one day I would really like to do a mashup that better allows someone to start at a certain band and branch away to newer artists as they explore similar bands. Just not enough time in the day....