It Might Make Me A Geek, But.....

A few months ago, for Christmas infact Mrs F bought me something I'd been after for a while.  A Logitech Squeezebox Duet (Below). I wanted something that could stream music from my computer (In the study) to my 5.1 speaker set up (In the lounge). Nearly all of my music is on my PC, about 31 days worth in fact (According to iTunes). I do have a decent 2.1 speaker set up on my PC, so listening to music in that half of the house is taken care of, it was just to bring the mountain to Mohammed so to speak and have all my music available in the lounge also.

It was only when I got the Squeezebox Duet I discovered something installed on it called Last.fm. What is Last.fm I hear you shout?? Well it is, (From The last.fm website):

Last.fm is a music service that lets you discover new music you like, based on the music you already listen to.

The Last.fm website is filled with tons of information on artists, albums and tracks, more music similar to them, charts and other statistics and more, all built by the Last.fm users who’re keeping track of what they’re listening to with Last.fm. (If you want to join them and get your own profile with your personal charts and stats, read the next question for more information.)

You can read about artists you like, check out their most popular tracks, browse their album and find out what other artists are similar to them; learn about upcoming events, explore interesting genres, listen to music and watch videos.

To get the most out of Last.fm, sign up for a user profile – you can build up your personal user profile, write journal articles about your favourite music, create your own event calendar and invite friends, talk to other users and get together with them in groups about interesting topics.

I set the account up online, and started listening to music I knew, which in turn offered similar artistes for me to listen to. A sort of personalised radio station, based on music I like. Simple.

Not to geeky - up to now.

This week I realised that last.fm could be linked to Spotify - Another music service I've been using for quite a while now. For those who do not know, Spotify is (From the Spotify Website):

Spotify is a new way to listen to music

Any track you like, any time you like. Just search for it in Spotify, then play it. Any artist, any album, any genre - all available instantly. With Spotify, there are no limits to the amount of music you could listen to. Just help yourself to whatever you want, whenever you want it.

Now - This is where it gets geeky: These two are linked by something called "Scrobbling"

Scrobbling a song means that when you listen to it, the name of the song is sent to Last.fm and added to your music profile.

Once you've signed up and downloaded Last.fm, you can scrobble songs you listen to on your Spotify account, computer or iPod automatically. Songs you listen to will also appear on your Last.fm profile page for others to see.

As you have read, The Last.fm account is now linked to:

Spotify - Scrobbling music listened to online to the Last.fm profile.

iTunes - In turn linked to Spotify, importing it's playlists so you can listen to them in Spotify. (In essence, Making your entire music collection available at any Spotify enabled device worldwide!!) and also scrobbling music listened to here into your Last.fm profile.

Windows Media Player - Scrobble music from here to the Last.fm profile also.

Now, As if all of the above is not geeky enough, Twitter now comes into play!! As well as linking music & playlists you are listening to in Spotify direct to Twitter, encouraging others to listen to your chosen tunes, Twitter is linked to Last.fm using Tweekly.fm. What this does is Tweets your most listened to bands and artists, automatically once a week, or on request to your followers. On a similar note Lastfmlovetweet is also set up, so now when I "Love" a tune (A bit like Starring or Liking) it tweets to my followers that I now love that particular song, inserting a link to follow so they can hear it too!

So excited I have been with all of this  "social media meets music" activity I have tried explaining it all to those I know, bored the arse off Mrs F who is still none the wiser over it all, so I decided to share it with YOU.

Have a look at my Last.fm Profile HERE
Try out Spotify for yourselves HERE
Buy a Logitech Squeezebox Duet HERE

Now if this works, there should be an Auto tweet to Twitter showing that I have made a new blog post!!

I did say I may be a bit geeky!!