Last.fm Plans Custom Music Video Channels

Corey writes "CNet's Crave is reporting that the popular Web 2.0 music site Last.fm is planning to launch a video-on-demand service that dynamically creates a custom video channel for users in the same way it currently does with music. Read/Write Web also cites a recent press release quoting directors at Last.fm as saying they plan to host every music video ever created. This could well turn out to be the MTV of Web 2.0."

Comments

That's nice

[n6kuy]

'Specially since MTV doesn't broadcast music videos any more.

Oh, dear..

[Rob T Firefly]

This could well turn out to be the MTV of Web 2.0.

So it'll be full of reality shows, ringtone ads, army recruitment propaganda, and every so often a music video?

Re:Oh, dear..

[asilentthing]

Yeah, as long as it doesn't turn out to be the MTV of Web 2.0, this could be awesome.

Finally

[Tribbin]

Hope this will for me block the overkill of gangsters/pimps with half-naked ladies that 80% of the MTV/TMF clips show the last couple of years.

Maybe the music channels on TV will discover that this is NOT what most people like too see.

Re:Finally

[drinkypoo]

Maybe the music channels on TV will discover that this is NOT what most people like too see.

TV on what planet?

Sex and Violence are the biggest sellers...

The server already struggles

[digitig]

I still get server overload errors on Last.fm (just had one, in fact), and that's with just audio (plus track listing data, of course). They'll need a big investment in infrastructure to serve up video reliably.

Re:Licensing...

[Auz]

Last.fm is UK based. So presumably has to deal with the BPI's abominable licencing.

not bad

[spentmiles]

I was just looking for an internet radio site... I'm working from home today and I couldn't find the power cord to the old portable radio. last.fm seems cool -- based on my first try. When you first login, it asks you for what band you're interested in listening to. I figured I'd give it a challenge, so I tried Mr. Bungle. A decent song came right up (Backstrokin) and it also gave me some decent suggestions for related bands -- some I hadn't heard of. The next song is right on key, so I'll keep listening for a while.

Lastfm video mashup already exists

[captainclever]

In the meantime (whilst we figure out how the hell to get every video known to man ;) you can check out the mashup:

http://www.lasttv.net/

which is pretty awesome.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re:Last.fm should focus on its core functions firs

[zombie_striptease]

As much as I appreciate Pandora's ambitions, their recommendation system is far from ideal. I can only tolerate Pandora radio when I'm in a real funk where I don't want to listen to anything in my collection, and even then, it never takes long for the database to actually offend me with its poor recommendations. The flaws come up more in some genres than others; one of my biggest gripes is that a lot of the harder music doesn't seem to be labelled and categorized by anyone who actually is a fan of hard rock. Rather, it seems like after a certain threshold, whoever's categorizing it throws their hands up and says,"It's all just noise to me!" and just throws the crap and the good together willy nilly.

Also, the "Add Music to This Station" functionality is really poorly implemented. It seems to treat each seed seperately and just rotate through which seed's recommendations it's pulling recommendations from, rather than doing anything sensible like finding common themes and traits among your favorite artists all together and then basing recommendations off the pooled knowledge. I can understand some people liking the current system (particularly fans who stick to one genre), but I'd been hoping for a way to tell the system,"All your recommendations for [band] suck, pay more attention to the aspects [band] shares with [other band]".

...which isn't to say that last.fm's popularity-based system doesn't also hold annoyances. If you like a single band that's part of a larger scene, but don't like the rest of the scene, you just get flooded with crap from that scene no matter where you turn (for values of "scene" spanning everything from cliquish sub-genre to country of origin to decade of origin).

Basically all automated recommendation systems suck at this point and I'll never find good new music ever. DX

Re:Last.fm should focus on its core functions firs

[tmarthal]

I just wish they would revisit the core elements of the site for a change and give us a system that works...

Maybe you just don't get the core elements of the site, but it has always been a social network site based on similar music tastes. The Pandora project is an interesting idea in that it algorithmically determines music similarity (not hand coded like a poster above mentioned(?)) based on attributes such as tempo, etc. Last.fm, on the other hand, rates similarity based on what people are listening to. Meaning, Kelly Clarkson and The Killers (for example) do not have any musical attributes in common, but sure as shit the same people that listen to one, listen to the other. It breaks down with popular media because lots of different listener types will listen to the new rap/dance song, but again as someone said above, it works for things not so much in the popular culture (Ska, Screamo, Reggae, House, Funk, etc.).

The social network has been, and always will be, thier core element. Thier recommendation system is as good as the people listening to the music.