Audioscrobbler (Anyone Remember Firefly?)

asciirock writes "RJ, a University of Southampton grad student in the UK has just put his final year project online. Audioscrobbler is a free plug-in for Linux XMMS and Windows Winamp2. It tracks every tune you play, cross-references with others in the Audioscrobbler community and serves up recommendations. There's also msging, stats and user homepages. In other words... Firefly lives!"

Comments

But ...

[halftrack]

I'm getting this plug-in and I'm going to test it because it sounds great, but it sounds creapishly like certain other pieces of software and licensing clauses.

Think about it; it profiles your music taste and make recommandations. That's what spyware does (or says it does.)

I don't doubt that this piece of software is completely innocent (it being made by a student,) but who knows when someone makes a "new and improved Audioscrobbler." That really profiles you and stores this information for resale and profit without you really knowing it. Sure you might prefere targeted music adwertising, but be warned such advertising would only come from a preselected, narrow artist pool.

Now, I'm using Audioscrobbler, but if it ever becomes mainstream I would be careful using any commercial equivalent (or even a commercial Audioscrobbler.)