Comments on: Last.fm taking major step towards becoming great big clever iTunes in the sky

By: Q dub

Q dub — Tue, 03 Jun 2008 04:43:38 +0000

One more point:

It's the exact same trend as the transition from POP mail to webmail, or any other desktop-to-webtop transitions predicted in other apps.

By: Q dub

Q dub — Tue, 03 Jun 2008 04:41:39 +0000

I absolutely see music moving in this direction. People will purchase permanent licenses but do not need to be in possession of music.

* Possession is an antiquated tradition from the world of physical goods.
Instead, digital media should be sold as a combination of a right-to-play and some level of ability-to-access (e.g. streaming via browser + stream via phone) I think the ability-to-access will be the most important level. Provide sufficiently convenient access and most users wont' care as much about rights restrictions nor “archival” needs.

By: Q dub

Q dub — Mon, 02 Jun 2008 21:43:38 +0000

One more point:

It's the exact same trend as the transition from POP mail to webmail, or any other desktop-to-webtop transitions predicted in other apps.

By: Q dub

Q dub — Mon, 02 Jun 2008 21:41:39 +0000

I absolutely see music moving in this direction. People will purchase permanent licenses but do not need to be in possession of music.

By: gregory

gregory — Thu, 29 May 2008 03:04:17 +0000

for me it has not been so enjoyable since cbs or whoever, bought it… before, it was sheer magic, now, i feel like i am somebody's marketing target. so i pass.

By: Philippe Bradley

Philippe Bradley — Wed, 28 May 2008 19:07:41 +0000

I can well appreciate that your comment that I may be getting ahead of myself – I often do.
But content is already very impressive and growing steadily, so apart from the files it doesn't have (yet?), it *is* a 'jukebox in the sky', to all intents and purposes. How it caters to the niche versus the mainstream in its ever growing catalogue remains to be seen. Here's hoping both are equally well served

now, as for only being able to play them 3 times, I largely suspect that's because they haven't yet totally figured out the revenue side of things. 3 plays is a taster. In this post I linked to an earlier post I made: http://www.overthecounterculture.com/2008/lastf...
Check the screenshot. It promises “unlimited access”, does it not? But they need to make sure they know how much that's gonna cost them in order to know how much to charge for the service; part of that is knowing what the auxiliary (non-subscription) revenue is to a streaming service – how many shoppers do they send to Amazon to download/buy the single or album, how many ads get clicked on, etc, how many times do people listen to each song and is that from (costly) major labels, or are people streaming underground stuff that maybe costs last.fm less (in terms of streaming royalties)… etc.

By: Skyler

Skyler — Wed, 28 May 2008 18:59:26 +0000

Here's the thing though... streamable for free, a mere three times. That's it. What use it that to me? None. I'd rather pay to own and download the digital (and high quality version) rather than pay for unlimited access to the streamable version that I can only play with an internet connection.

I think you're getting ahead of yourself with the whole red button thing. That seems like a feature pretty far off in the future.. Nice idea, just nothing that's going to happen soon on last fm.

Sure, I know it adds everything I play, but what I meant was that just because I play a song and I scrobble it doesn't mean that I can then play that song on another computer that doesn't have all my files on if its not available in the full version on last fm. That's why it's not that fantastic.

By: Philippe Bradley

Philippe Bradley — Wed, 28 May 2008 11:32:03 +0000

Well here's the thing. Firstly Last.fm has a very good online catalogue of songs, available streamable, for free - and legal, too; being purchased by CBS will probably help them really put their backs into doing bulk deals with all labels, major or indie. So the big streaming jukebox in the sky isn't a pipe dream - there's already more free streaming music up on there than anyone's hard drive could hold; much less a mobile phone, nor even an ipod.

Secondly, this is a jukebox you can add albums to on the fly, wherever you are - you might be watching TV, hear a cool song and if that TV is interactive, press the red button and add it to your online jukebox; or you might be listening to it through web radio, it gets scrobbled and added automatically. Even in mp3 format you are still physically tied to your music; you have to sync it between all your devices to be able to listen to it. In an increasingly all-IP-connected world of consumer electronics, it makes precious little sense not to hold all your media in the cloud. And rather than each person having their own cloud, last.fm appears to be building one cloud and figuring out who has what access to which bits of it.

This is not just wishful thinking. It's the path of least resistance for the tech, and a reasonable explanation for this particular redesign/re-emphasising of the Library feature.

Oh, and the service *DOES* add every song you play, if it gets 'scrobbled'. That's technology they've had since day 1 (when last.fm was just Audioscrobbler); now they use that (plus albums/tracks you manually add) to make up your 'Library', and tie each song in your library (that they have in their cloud) to a full, streaming track; and links to download it as mp3, for those weekends/commutes that happen to be off the grid.

This is not "wishful thinking".

By: Skyler

Skyler — Wed, 28 May 2008 10:28:36 +0000

What the fuck is a jukebox in the (sky)? I think it's wishful thinking on your part. To be able to listen to the song, last.fm has to have that track legally licensed and available on their servers in order to re-play it. Right now, most of the stuff that they don't have available would be the music I would want to listen to. Who wants to wait for a low-quality streamable version of an album to load if they can just listen to a high quality version that they already have on disk, or on their mp3 players? The full tracks thing is awesome if you want to hear a few samples from a band a friend has recommended to you or whatever, but as far as actual listning to it goes, I think people will always choose their mp3 player or the files they can download from the internet and put into their computer ect.

The service won't just add any song you play, and it's certianly not as amazing and ground breaking as you're attempting to make out.

By: Links for 5.21.08: Last.fm’s evolution, Death Cab’s #1, Baghdad’s metal… « the listenerd

Thu, 22 May 2008 01:19:05 +0000

[...] *Thoughts on the new new Last.fm, which is now in beta and for subscribers only. (Maybe I need to start with Last.fm again?) [a vc] [...]

By: Philippe Bradley

Philippe Bradley — Wed, 21 May 2008 21:54:07 +0000

Come to think of it, that *is* quite similar! Funny indeed (especially in the week in which the labels announce a bit partnership with Napster)

By: Mark Allen

Mark Allen — Wed, 21 May 2008 21:25:15 +0000

The locker sounds exactly like one of the incarnations of mp3.com, which the labels threw a hissy fit over. Funny how a couple years of declining revenues can change things.