Finally... it truly is the last.fm station I will every need

Last.FM - my favorite of all web 2.0 and social media websites to come into existence in the past five years - had been lagging on the innovative front since some time before they were bought by CBS. I had been mostly disappointed by the Recommendations. Despite having listened to an incredible amount of tracks, Last.FM primarily recommended pretty mainstream music I had already heard (and mostly disliked).

I had always liked Last.FM better than Pandora because of the promise that I did not need to do anything to use it, but that I would get great music recommendations from like-minded listeners. The way it works is that by tracking my own music listening behaviors, Last.FM could analyze that behavior and then recommend music to me. The recommendations would come in one of three ways:

• From friends - people whom I have linked my account to
• From neighbors - people Last.FM associates my listening behavior with
• From Last.FM - based on their own analysis

The promise was fulfilled through listing the recommendations on the website and more interestingly through an online radio player.

I used to love Spinner which was one of the original web-based radio stations. That is actually a poor description because Spinner had more than 125 different channels to choose from based on genre. I liked that I could choose from bebop jazz, acid jazz, acoustic jazz, etc. and I would always discover some new interesting music. Last.FM improved the concept of internet radio by connecting my behavior to others thereby eliminating the need for me to select a station -- instead my own behavior would inform the Last.FM engine how to customize my radio station. They do this in two ways:

• I link my iPod and itunes accounts to last.fm and it transcribes the tracks I have listened to up to the service (scrobbling)
• When I listen to my Last.FM recommendations, I can mark any track as "Love it", "Ban it" or "Skip it" and in this way train the service to my tastes

As I mentioned I liked this better than Pandora because I did not need to do anything but listen to music. Pandora had the more scientific sales-pitch but I still needed to start the engine by typing in a song or artist name. I am really indecisive when it comes to unimportant issues. With very little downside, I tend to have trouble making a decision so I end up typing something off the top of my head and invariably it's not what I want. Then I try another and it too is not what I want. I usually then give up. Why? Because I end up remembering the big brand names that I am trying to get away from by using such a service. So, when I type in "Cake" I get a bunch of Cake songs mixed in with Soul Coughing and others like it. I already know these bands and do not need to 'discover' them. Another problem is that Pandora works almost so well that each time I type something in, every song sounds the same. My taste is not so uniform so that I have to have the same beat and rhythm in every song to enjoy it - - in fact, I want just the opposite. I want a variety and blend of beats and rhythms throughout the day.

Last.FM's promise was to solve this by matching my listening behavior with other people like me. If I listen to punk, jazz, reggae in the same day, no problem, someone else probably does too and might be listening to something else interesting to me that I have not already listened to. For example, this person might be also listening to the Ethiopiques album, combination of world music and jazz, which would then be introduced to me via the recommendation engine.

So, when Last.FM's recommendations fell flat in the early going, I was disappointed. Being a faithful customer, I did not lose interest completely - I knew the idea had promise. In fact, it was easy to keep tracking my listening behavior because I did not need to do anything. The tracking happened in the background as I went about my normal behavior.

Recently, Last.FM launched a redesign of the site and service. I am happy to report that the Recommendation engine rocks now. The music is spot on and obscure anough where each day I am hearing new tracks that I have not heard or discovering artists I have not known. I can also listen to my "library" which is a collection of songs I have already listened to -- very cool. Sometimes I think they slip in some songs from the record company to 'test market' them, but I do not have a problem with that; if I do not like it, I ban it and they never play it again. The only oddity in the new design is that "Neighbor Radio" has terrible music but with the Recommendation engine working strong and the new Library feature, I am happy once again to be a big fan of Last.fm.