Wednesday Web – Page 2 – Leaps And Bounds

Category: Wednesday Web

06
May
2009

Wednesday Web: Last.fm

last.fm

Last.fm is one of our favourite music sites. It basically counts what you listen to, and makes recommendations. It sounds simple, but with 30 million users and 7 years of constant information, it is the best recommendation engine out there.

Last.fm has two parts. The site, and then a program called Audioscrobbler. Audioscrobbler can be installed on your computer, or as a plug-in for your media player. However you do it, Audioscrobbler starts to tell the site (through your signed up account) what you listen to, and logs it.

Then the fun starts.

We’ve had an account for years, and it’s amazing to see that we listen to a hell of a lot of REM. It’s just full of interesting stats – if you’re into that sort of thing.

You can discover more about your listening habits in many ways. Top tracks, albums and artists split into 7 days, 3 month, 6 month, 12 month and all-time.

But that’s just scratching the surface. You can see what your friends are listening to. You can also see what the most popular track by an artist is. You can also see, generally, what most of the world is listening to at the moment.

You can confirm to yourself that Dylan’s biggest song is Like A Rolling Stone. Radiohead actually is the most popular band in the world. Almost 20K people listened to ‘I Kissed A Girl’ yesterday. Utterly fascinating (if you like that sort of thing).

There’s some great community stuff too. A simple but functional friends system, groups and a powerfully accurate recommendations engine. As it’s actually based on lots of people’s real listening habits, it gets it mostly right.

This all comes on the news that Last.fm’s owners (CBS, who bought the company in ’97 for a whopping $280m), is going to roll the site into it’s radio and interactive music departments. Not sure what changes this will mean for us users…we’ll see.

Regardless, as of right now, it’s simple to hook up. Join if you haven’t already. Add to the great wealth of information that the internet is good for. And find out a little more about yourself in the process.

Last.fm – http://www.last.fm

29
Apr
2009

Wednesday Web: Metacritic

categories: Wednesday Web

For those unfamiliar, Metcritic brings together reviews from around the web of the same records, movies, games and more. Unlike elbo.ws or wearerhunted.com, Metacritic focuses in on respected publications, not fan opinions.

Amongst the reviews collected by Metacritic are Rolling Stone, Q, Mojo, NME, Paste, many internationally renown newspapers and even websites like Pitchfork and Allmusic. Those reviews are given a score out of 100, and the collected scores are given an overall score out of 100.

The point? It’s fantastic place to see what the critics are saying. You don’t have to surf around a dozen websites. And lets face it, the overall opinion of the world’s biggest music press still matters.

We love checking this site. Not only does it reminds us what is out this week, it helps us choose what we listen to every week. The fantastic reviews the Yeah Yeah Yeahs have gotten for their new record made us give that record more of a chance. It’s now one of our faves so far this year. Every time someone like Dylan puts out a new record, you think you might skip it. With a score of ’82’ (universal acclaim), maybe now is not the time.

On the other hand, any nostalgic loyalty to Chris Cornell has been shattered. It has the worse reviews on the site of any album this year. However, when a record is as bad as Cornell’s, the reviews are hilarious. Having one site that collects hilariously damning review after damning review can definitely take a up a few hours of schedenfraude.

There’s also a score for reader reviews, giving you an insight into what regular folks think. Amazing, the user score is even higher for Dylan, who is known for being a critic’s darling! And there is more than just music. Games, movies, DVDs and TV are all covered by the same system.

So next time you’re wondering if something is any good, Metacritic should be your first stop. It takes away the single biased review and gives you a sense of people are saying, without having to ever talk about it. You can just quietly delete that Chris Cornell album off your shopping list.

Check it out here – http://www.metacritic.com/

22
Apr
2009

Wednesday Web: We Are Hunted

categories: music, Wednesday Web

This site is exactly what we love about the internet. It’s the kind of thing that makes us happy to be alive and a music fan today. Forget ’63. You can have ’77. We love ’09. And we are dying to see ’10 as well.

But back to WeAreHunted.com. WAH is an online chart with a major difference. It collects information from all over the ‘net – torrents, music blogs, social networks, forums, P2P networks and, of course, Twitter – and shows you the hottest 99 tracks in the the world (wide web) today.

You can see why we are excited about it. It’s a brilliant idea. (And it’s Australian to boot).

Now we suddenly have an alternative chart. It’s a buzz chart, what people are talking about.

How it works, and what weighting is put on what information, is not known. How the Kenny Dope remix of There Was A Time by James Brown is number 2, I don’t know. But the potential is there.

Today’s charts are filled with lots of new artists. Bat For Lashes makes multiple appearances. The Streets – who have been giving away tracks for free on Twitter – makes a number of appearances as well. The fantastic Silversun Pickups also make multiple entries, which makes sense as their new album is doing very well.

So are people downloading? Or just talking about this stuff? Hard to tell with WAH. Maybe this will change. But it’s already a valuble place to start checking out what the latest hot tracks are. Hopefully it will stick around and develop. Although the innovative website has already stirred the ears of APRA (Australian Performing Rights Association) about license fees. Hopefully it wont be another Muxtape.

Check it out! – WeAreHunted.com