I’ve been using Audioscrobbler for a few years now. Only recently, though, have I really appreciated all the things it has to offer.
Audioscrobbler is a free service that collects information about the music you listen to. You install a simple plug-in for your music player of choice (iTunes, QCD, Winamp, foobar2000, etc.) and each time the track changes, the information is sent to Audioscrobbler. From this information that’s collected, people can subscribe to an RSS feed (if they’re really interested in what you’re listening to), view stastistics about your listening habits (such as “top artists for the week), and through Audioscrobbler’s sister site Last.fm, they can listen to a randomized stream of your tracks.
It’s this last thing that really impressed me last week when I took another look at Last.fm. I have over 5500 tracks uploaded and recognized, so when I listen to my personal station, I was presented with a stream of my own music, some of which I hadn’t listened to in a few years. Exactly how they technically achieve this, I’m not sure, but I was really impressed that they had some seriously obscure music I would never have expected.
Audioscrobbler and Last.fm also take the Myspace/Friendster/Orkut/blahblahblah approach to things and allow you to listen to an aggregation of your friends’ music. It’s like having all your friends come together and DJ a party together. Usually it’s a really weird party where everyone leans against the wall and says, “I can’t dance to this!,” but it’s a party nonetheless.
If you listen to music on your computer, think about signing up and downloading one of the plug-ins. If you do, be sure to join the Daily Ping Audioscrobbler group.
Scrobble scrobble!
Posted in Miscellaneous