Last.FM

http://www.last.fm/

Type: Music Database Age: 5 Nationality: British Last.fm is a giant music database built around a gadget called Audioscrobbler, which reports on every track you listen to on your computer - so it's no use trying to hide those three-day Nickelback binges. Based on the data from its half a million other users, Last.fm soon works out what obscure new bands might suit your tastes, and builds you a perfect radio station (hence the name) from those recommendations. It's the best robot DJ since Daft Punk. (And it's just been sold for £140 million!)

More from Last.fm

Real-time charts from Last.fm's three founders:

Felix Miller
Richard Jones

Martin Stiksel

Extended Q&A with Martin Stiksel:

Is Last.fm more about clever ideas or clever technology?
It’s actually pretty simple! We wanted an easy way to find new music. It exists because we [co-founders Martin Stiksel, Felix Miller and Richard Jones] were looking for something on the internet that does what Last.fm does, and couldn’t find anything. It’s continued to be an intuitive process since then. Once we’d built up a large user base and a substantial music catalogue, the question was: how else can we use this information? Well, we can connect people who share the same taste, we can recommend events, we can promote unsigned artists to people who will actually like their music, we can give users their own music video channels, and so on. And that’s what we’ve done.

What music have you discovered yourself through the site?
Last.fm has seriously expanded our musical horizon, from sixties rockabilly and dub via world music from round the globe to local dubstep produce. Also lots of unsigned bands from Britain, the US and Germany show that pop music is in a very healthy state indeed, although you won't hear them on any traditional radio station.

Last.fm users seem to love starting groups, writing journals, tagging etc. How do you foster a collaborative community like this?
We don’t have to do anything, really, beyond giving them the tools they need. Music fans are always pretty opinionated! And I think the most passionate come to Last.fm because music is at the core of everything on the site. It’s not going in a million random directions at once like MySpace, it’s not humourless and boring like Facebook. It’s really simple: it’s about music discovery.

Why is Last.fm better than similar services like Pandora?
Pandora is quite old-fashioned in a way, because it relies on a team of backroom boys to make slightly clinical analyses of songs – it’s a very ‘top-down’ experience, as users have to rely on these boffins to make the right decisions. Last.fm’s recommendations are drawn from the actual listening habits of our 20 million users, constantly being updated and refined, which can only improve as more people join the site. Plus we offer a lot more than Pandora: a platform for unsigned artists, personalised gig listings, and so on. Our competition is really MySpace.

What's it like working on Old Street when most web start-ups are based in America?
London is obviously the best place to be if you’re into music. We can go to gigs around Old Street and actually meet bands who are using Last.fm to promote themselves, and it’s cool, it feels like we’re in the thick of things, rather than being stuck out in boring Silicon Valley away from the action. It means that we’ve created something pretty unique – something that, tellingly, has been copied time and again by American start-ups, when it comes to music London always leads the way!

How often do you hear of people hooking up through shared music tastes on Last.fm
A couple got married after meeting on Last.fm! So it does happen. For some people it’s pretty crucial that the person they date shares the same taste in music. It’s because music is that important to people that Last.fm exists, really.

I have read that you can pseudo-stalk your ex-girlfriend or -boyfriend by looking at the music they're listening to and working out what they're doing/what mood they're in. Is this a myth?
Sure, why not? I suppose you could then respond by playing music that shows how much of a mess you are since they left. Just put Big Star’s ‘Sister Lovers’ on loop until they have to come round and check you’re all right!

Why is it that discovering new music turns into an obsession so easily?
Perhaps, like any addiction, it’s about recapturing that first experience. Most of us get into music by hearing the big famous albums by the Beatles or the Velvet Underground or whoever, and then spend the rest of our lives searching for more music that lives up to it, and finding new favourites in the process. Of course there’s so much more music out there than ever before, so you have to be slightly mad to continue to dedicate yourself to that search – it’s endless!
 
Interview by Ned Beauman