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Apple Archive

Find Online Friends Based on Taste in Music with Audioscrobbler

, 2005.03.11

Within the past year or so, I've noticed an interesting rise in the number of websites where you create profiles for yourself. Sites like Friendster, which allows you to create a profile and then add people as friends, or the slightly more useful thefacebook, which links up college students - I've actually found it useful in terms of finding people in my classes to study with or compare class notes.

However, most of these sites are based strictly on a personal profile, with a picture, a list of interests, a list of what type of friends you want to meet, a space for a quote of some sort, and then some way for your friends to post comments about you.

This week I was shown a new one of "friend" site, Audioscrobbler. You download a plug-in for your computer, and the names of the MP3s or CDs you listen to on your computer will get uploaded to your statistics page on their site. After a few weeks, it generates a musical profile of some sort, based on the types of music you tend to listen to often. Then it will suggest songs and artists for you to look into.

You can also browse other users' pages to see what they're listening to or join groups of users with similar interests (for example, the Mac OS X group).

That seemed a bit different and a little bit more interesting than the typical Friendster/thefacebook style site, so I decided I would give it a try. I was also curious as to how well it actually worked with the Mac and what features the Mac version of the plug-in was missing.

Audioscrobbler

I signed up and went to download a plug-in. Interestingly, the MP3 plug-in listed right at the top was for . . . iTunes. They have versions for both Mac (OS X only, unfortunately) and Windows.

The fact that iTunes was at the top of the list shows how much of an impact Apple has had on the way people listen to music in the past few years. Just a few years ago most of these programs either didn't have a Mac version or didn't have any plans for a Mac version (for example, when the original Napster was just coming out, there was no Mac version until a third-party developed Macster). Those that did have Mac versions were often several version numbers behind the Windows variation (a certain ISP comes to mind).

I installed the plug-in and was interested to see it appear right in the right-hand side of the menu bar, in between the volume and Adium icons. Clicking on it brings down a list of songs I recently played with iTunes, an option to send information about the songs I recently played on my iPod, a link to my statistics page, and a few other things. Once the song I'm currently playing in iTunes is finished, the plug-in will automatically update the information on my statistics page.

My other question: How correct a portrait of musical taste do you end up with? In other words, does it really show you what you tend to listen to most?

This is still unanswered for the most part. Right now In Flames is #1 on my 'Top Artists, which makes sense since I do tend to listen to them a lot. However, Dry Kill Logic is #2 - and not only do I rarely listen to them, I don't actually like them that much! Metric is also in the top 10, along with The Alarm, neither of which I listen to that often. I suspect that this will even out after a few more days, and a more accurate picture will start to appear.

Another interesting thing is the supposed compatibility with the iPod. I still can't get it to work, but in theory you're supposed to be able to create a "Recently Played" smart playlist on your iPod, connect it to your computer, choose "Update iPod" from the Audioscrobbler menu, and it will send the information about what you were listening to on your iPod to your statistics page.

The farthest I got was getting the Recently Played playlist working. For some reason it's not sending the information to Audioscrobbler, although it's something I'm planning on trying again before I discount it as a bug or broken feature.

Audioscrobbler is a promising concept, and with one exception, it seems to work fairly well (and integrate rather seamlessly) with the Mac. Hopefully as a result of using this service I'll learn about some music I wouldn't have known about otherwise and maybe get a better idea of what type of music I listen to more than others.

Endnote: I'd call this a software review, but that raises a question - are sites like this software or just interactive websites? I think that within the past few years the definition of software has become more blurred (online games, tax software that relies on the Internet, etc.), therefore I would have to argue that it's a type of software since it involves more than just a browser.

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