Music Web Site Takes Advantage of Global Community via the Daily Evergreen
see link for "published version"

Online sites are evolving more towards the idea and promotion of social community. Instead of separating the lives of people through reality and their online habits, the internet is changing to provide a supplement to those who are in need of more communication and accessibility. Different websites have incorporated different aspects of media and social quirks to create unique and creative ways to keep in touch. Last.fm is a site that incorporates the music you listen to and compares it to your friends in a social network setting.

Based out of the U.K., Last.fm acts as an evolving chart system using internet radio and statistics to determine music compatibility with other users and also recommend new artists based off of your tastes. Their chart system compiles listening information from their users on a weekly basis. From there they can determine what songs, albums or artists are being listened to the most. As of this week, the top tracks on Last.fm are Linkin Park's What I've Done followed up by the song Bleed It Out, once again by Linkin Park. The top song spanned over 21,000 listeners while being played only 86,000 times on computers. Their top artist for the past month straight has been Red Hot Chili Peppers followed second by The Beatles. This is all based off of what members are listening to on their home or portable computers.

Listening information is found by syndicating the song information through a plug-in that 'scrobbles' what a user is listening to at that time and then places it onto the user's profile page. From there users can compare what they are listening to and what their friends are listening to.

The next aspect of Last.fm is their internet radio. It's done in a flash player on the website or through the plug-in on your computer that compiles together various songs that are on the site. Katrina Burch, a double major in History and Anthropology, is a frequent user of Last.fm. "It's awesome that I can listen to a radio without commercials and that has music I listen to as well. The stations around here suck for me because I hate most the music and last.fm lets me listen to my types of music." Katrina's most recently played songs consist of Josh Groban, Michael Buble and even the Washington State University Singers.

A feature most students will be familiar with are groups. Last.fm allows for groups on their website. There is already a group titled, Pullman Washington. It consists of mostly WSU students and even some alumni.  Senior computer science major, Scott Robinson, is the creator of this community. He says, "The Pullman Washington community is for people who live in Pullman. When you join the community, Last.fm shares our musical interests automatically and you can recommend artists and tracks to the community as a whole."

If you're looking to do something more with the music you listen to, this is something you can easily get involved with. Last.fm provides the ability to compare your musical tastes with others, recommend new music based off of what you listen to and find the information you need about artists.

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At least I made page 5. My next question is what the hell is the website in that picture. It is certainly not last.fm. It looks like something out of the year 1997. And that link? That's featured on the picture? Guess where it goes! Because obviously nobody checked the link before they slapped it in.

quadhome: "That's amazon."

oh shi- moral of the story; i'd take the online version versus the print!