Audioscrobbler ahoy!

Well, this is just a neat thing (thanks Cienna Rand for the heads up)... it's called Audioscrobbler.

THe basic gist of it is it tracks what you play in your favorite media player (winamp, media jukebox, whatever), and then uploads it to a profile website. Over time it shows you what you listen to most, your top 40 tracks of all time, stuff like that.

PLUS.

If you add friends and whatnot, you can see what everynoe else listens to...

PLUS

Eventually it gets a sense of what you like to listen to and can give recommendations of what you might like, based on what others listened to (ie this person likes beck and BandPants a lot, and you like beck alot, so therefore you might like BandPants alot).

It's free, of course.

http://www.audioscrobbler.com

My username is Lordfly... there's a Second Life usergroup, too. Join!

LF

I rediscovered the service earlier this week, when going through a folder of bookmarks from around 2000. I was able to log back in with my old account info, but the service seemed to be down at the moment and I hadn't stopped back since.

I used it for a little while back in 2000, and it was kinda cool to be able to share what I was listening to. Now that they have a plugin for iTunes, I may reinstall it and give it another whirl.

My impression of Audioscrobbler is that it's a wink-and-a-nudge way of enabling file sharing. The site doesn't enable or encourage people to do anything illegal, but what it DOES do is overcome the biggest obstacle that people would have to widespread file-sharing of MP3's; namely, "Where can I find someone else who has (and might be willing to share) the particular song or album that I want to get for free?".

Basically, unless I'm mistaken, you sign up for audioscrobbler, start extending your buddy list, and then search for songs that you want. Find someone who has it, and then ask them for a "backup" of their MP3 because "um, my CD is all scratched and won't play, so I need a backup. Thanks!"

It also gives the website plausible deniability when the RIAA comes a-knocking. "We don't encourage or endorse file-sharing of any kind. This is just a way for people to tell others what they're listening to."

Maybe I'm just too jaded and cynical, but I thought the whole site seemed like a "Napster-but-provide-your-own-means-of-file-sharing".

But there's no way of distributing files within the audioscrobbler system... it's just what you said; a way for everyone to know what you're listening to.

At the worst, it's a way for people to find new songs/artists to download and listen to.

At best, it creates fans out of people listening to new tunes.

LF

It sounds like a very powerful tool for indie musicians.

Yeah... I was suprised to see even MY stuff with stats... one of my songs has apparently been played over 300 times (!).

neat

LF

It also hooks into last.fm which builds a radio station based on your song preferences or your 'profile' which is based on your neighbors. I would assume, since the first song it played for me was Green Day, that they run on donations to cover licensing fees.

Icon,
For something specifically for indie music: http://indy.tv
This one picks music from a list of indie-donated tracks that you rate and it in theory sends you more tracks that you like and fewer you don't. It also lets you allocate storage space to actually keep the downloaded songs, versus just streaming. The only problem I've found so far is there hasn't been much music that I actually like, and some of the tracks seem like they are incomplete.

OK i joined the SL group

I'm bumping this because I just joined the SL Audioscrobbler group, too. Now don't y'all laugh at my dorky music selections.

Mmm... I love marketingspyware

Done

You can search for usernames in the "Find" drop-down box on the left side of the main page. Just type in the username of one of the people in the Second Life group, like lordfly, or BerylGreenacre, or benlinden (Ben started the group) and do a search. Then, at the top of a user's profile page, you can click on their Groups and it will show you which groups that person belongs to. Then you can click on the group name and join.

Is there a pornoscrobbler yet? Just wondering.