Radio, at last

Via the LJ Support crowd, I may at last have found a way to listen to new music. It's called Last.FM. What you do is you sign up and then you train your profile, either manually, by adding music or by downloading a plugin for your MP3 player which tells the site what you're playing. When it has enough tracks to work from it'll start using the user database to calculate which people your musical taste is most like. It then provides you with a audio stream of a radio station which plays music from not only your profile but your musical neighbours as well. Stuff you listen to is then added to your profile if you didn't skip over it and hey presto - a new music mix with no need to listen to DJs or anything like that and (thus far) a higher proportion of stuff that you like than anything else.

You can make your own communities as well as just the one it calculates for you - you can list other users as friends and there's a concept of a group. There could be geekstalt radio :) You can also listen to just tracks from your own profile if you're feeling isolationist (although I think you lose that after a while unless you donate, which you don't have to). So far, I have to say I like it a lot. The site needs some work (I had a lot of trouble with page loads) but the actual radio stream bit seems to be really good quality. Check it out.

Oh, and Mark, there's features for label people to put their music on there and sell it - it would be really cool to get some Oxford bands up there...

Edit: If any one else is having trouble with page loads on the site, then I've noticed that all the profile stuff is also on http://www.audioscrobbler.com (run by the same people) and that site works.

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Oh, also, I am recovered enough for dancing (I think) so who wants to meet for food/talk tomorrow? 5:30 @ Head of the River.