Ages ago I heard and looked at Audioscrobbler and wrote it off because I didn't like the idea of sharing my preferences in music with the public. However looking at it again almost a year later I'm using it. The fact the data is licenced under the Creative Commons License (Attribution, Non-Commercial, Share-Alike), speaks volumes to my ear. Plus of course its all anonymous statistics, but it would be nice to get just your own data once in a while. However theres a ton of things I really want to change…
Firstup, what is up with < No Title > in the rdf feed? Why not have the track title or something instead? I was going to complain about the fact the submission engine seems to ignore podcasts but I was wrong thank goodness. Here is the Jeff Bezos (web 2.0) submission, which I was listening to at work today. Its a real shame audioscrobbler cant tell the difference between a podcast and a music track. Will Jeff Bezos ever have top fans? groups? top songs? Dont think so. I only just sorted the itunes audioscrobbler plugin proxy settings yesterday so Adam Curry's daily source code is not listed. I think it would be very interested to see who else is listening. Check out the Gilmor gang and ITconversations. So at least people are listening and audioscrobbler is doing something with it.
Ok next major thing, scream! I only listen to music and podcasts at work from my computer because I cant do it any other way. However at home I listen to stuff through my xbox media centre and when on the go through my ipaq and smartphone. So all that information is just lost, which is actually bulk of my listening! So ways forward, a audioscrobbler plugin for xbmc anyone?. For the mobile devices, theres already talk about capturing this data and then reporting back when the device is synced or online. Dana Greenlee talked about the problem with revenues when comparing streaming against download and she suggested something simular. And i'm starting to think this is going to be a bigger issue soon. Not only for revenue but for the audience and broadcaster. For example, if I the adam curry or mr evil genius knew how many times I fast forward there music, it may have some bearing on the next show? I douht it, but that information to gage how popular a tune could be. Am I right in saying Apple think they will sell another 4 million ipods next year and there will be millions of mp3phones sold next year. Who wants streaming audio on your phone when you can carry your own content with you? Yes I know you can justify your revenue with streaming but lets get creative and do something where all those offline device stats can be taken if the person opts in.
The whole last.fm thing is interesting but also kinda of iffy for me. I know the people behind this project, they were MA students and staff and it started out as a project in the college. And through a little bust-up, the project went off on a commercial tail. What happened next? who knows, who cares. Just gives me a funny feeling about seeing it. I dont think I'll be using it anyway because it relies on streaming which bugs me for the reasons above.
