Here's something I've been playing with for a few weeks. I was bitching to Jeremy about being cut off from the new music scene here in Denmark, and he turned me on to this thing called AudioScrobbler...
The idea is, you go to this website and download a plugin for whatever music software you use. Your machine will then track all the songs you listen to and send it to the audioscrobbler website. The website keeps statistics on what you are listening to and matches you up with others who have similar music tastes. You can press a button called "Network" and see others with similar playlists--and here's the cool bit--find out what they are listening to that you have never heard of before.
Let's say you're a big electro fan and listen to a lot of Ladytron, Adult., and Miss Kittin. You look at your network on AudioScrobbler and that someone else who is also into those bands listens to Alpinestars, who you've never heard of. It is likely then, that Alpinestars may be similar to those other bands you like and may be worth exploring. (Note that this only tells you the names of groups and songs and it's up to you to track them down on Epitonic or wherever--it's not some kind of peer to peer music thieving machine).
Good things about AudioScrobbler: it's free, it works, and it's fun to look at your own statistics. Best of all, you don't have to be social with other people on the network unless you want to. The basic tools involve zero contact with others.
Bad things about AudioScrobbler: it's technically spyware, and while your recently played songs appear instantly, your statistics only update about once a week.
Look on the upper right where I have a new "Playlist" link. If you get on AudioScrobbler, my alias is Eurotrash00 (I know it's gauche, forgive me).
Posted by case at February 7, 2005 09:48 PM