Show HN: My social music app
like.fm
like.fm
> Merge their top tracks intelligently into the ultimate list of new songs
Sooo why not a Last.FM app?
Just my brief $0.02 cents, feel free to reach out to me (or reply here) as I am obsessed with this space.
edit: some thoughts...
1) nice simple sign up
2) omg is that ajax logging in? always wondered why people don't offer that, cute.
3) the player on the right is the right concept but wrong implementation - I like how hypem.com has done it. takes up less space.
4) still not entirely clear what the value proposition is - what does it do? specifically what value does it bring?
After playing with service for a few moments and reading your comments, I can imagine this being an epic service that acts as a "Last.FM for Online Content" via scrobbler/bookmarklet, and tracks what i've recently watched/listened to - just my $0.0.2
I tried their Mac client once and it was a horrible experience (it was a windowed app whereas Like.fm is a menulet in OS X).
I remember it being an additional layer on top of how you normally listen to music (hearting songs). Like.fm uses existing user interface to generate your top tracks (rate songs directly from iTunes + frequency of play).
But most importantly, none of my friends, or anyone I knew, uses Last.fm (and I believe 2 out of 300 of my facebook friends have the Like.fm app installed). So I figured there's space to make a way for non-music-enthusiasts to share music info with each other. That's why Like.fm is really passive. You just play songs from iTunes like you normally do, rate them like you normally do (if you do). Then on Like.fm I guess what your current top tracks are, and share your play history with other people.
Also Like.fm doesn't require you to play hundreds of songs to build up a robust profile. The top played list on your profile is meant to represent your recent top tracks. So you just have to play some of your current top songs and it should be accurate. Recommendations will be based on who you choose to follow, so it's not directly dependent on training the system with your playback data. However the one problem at the moment may be that there aren't enough users to follow.
Also, there are tons of 3rd party scrobblers for Mac. iScrobbler is pretty decent.
I don't meant to sound negative. I think Last.FM has sewn up the "data" space (eg: what I'm playing, top artists) - but it sucks for recommendations, social, and everything else.
It isn't clear to me how your service is different to Last.FM in terms of setup. EG: I'm not a Last.FM user ... am I going to use your service, instead? Saying only 2 of my friends use x service so I made a competitor for them to use seems like mildly false logic. In these spaces I'd like to see something that works around the barrier to entry (requiring a scrobbler of some sort)
Integrating with Last.fm is a great idea. I honestly never event thought of that.
As a music junkie I use a few services:
Last.FM for the data (on me & friends (but not Facebook friends...))
Spotify for playback and sharing songs to friends (but not Last.FM friends - Facebook friends)
Hype Machine for hot music recently (scrobbled to Last.FM)
The huge weak spot is recommendations. Where do I go for artists like Eminem? I currently use the Spotify related artists page, boy does it suck.
Actually, I also use What.CD for music recommendations..
This is what What.CD suggests for Eminem: http://grab.by/5MLs
and this is what Spotify suggests for Eminem: http://grab.by/5MLu
Neither brilliant, honestly.
So yes - recommendations - valuable. Powered by my friends, what's hot, and algo for similar. Make a Pandora Radio minus the Radio bit, sounds useful. Maybe a weekly digest of similar artists I'll enjoy based on what I listened to this week.
But if I go into artist recommendations (as opposed to general new song recommendation and recommending other users), I'd take the same approach and do something much more dynamic than a fixed list of similar artists. So perhaps taking the subset of users who like Eminem A LOT and taking their top tracks under the same genre, merging them (as if you followed them), and providing that as a list of similar trending artists.
I have better facebook integration (as far as I can tell) which means all in all the value proposition is better for the large population of non last.fm users. I guess adding in last.fm scrobbling may change that? As a last.fm what would you say could win you over besides better artist recommendations. Sorry i don't use last.fm so it's hard for me to determine the main differences. I probably should do some research. :)
I know that friends != music friends, which is why you don't have to be friends on the site to follow (you can follow anyone). The only other problem is finding other people to follow, which is something I'm working very hard to solve.
The site looks good and I get the idea, but I'm not sure exactly how useful it is for regular listening. It seems to me that it's designed to play one song at a time? Personally, I have my own music library that I ranked and then listen to mostly on random. Sometimes I'll be in the mood to hear an album or an artist, and I'll play that. I have several friends that listen exclusively to Pandora.
The point is, I and everyone I know basically put on music we like and then go about our business, pausing only occasionally to switch to another album or thumbs-up/thumbs-down a song. Sitting there and consciously "discovering" music is just not something that I know anyone in my circle to do.
The ability to play music on the site right now however is a convenience thing. You can browse a friend's profile and check up on what they're listening to. And I figured you'll eventually pull up youtube to listen to one of those songs, why not just integrate that into the site directly.
I guess at the moment, until I get auto play integrated, I'm targeting more of the people who listen to their own iTunes library and occasionally try to find some new songs to add to their library.
Besides that, here are my initial thoughts:
I didn't explore the site enough to figure out what it did, beyond find music on YouTube and play it. I understand it can track other people's iTunes and WinAmps, but I'm not really interested in that. I find listening to ShoutCast channels and Pandora adequate, and I'm not convinced this service could up the ante.
I was impressed by how quick it was, that the forward and back buttons worked, and the overall design was pleasing. Visually, it looks like your site can be a serious competitor in your space.
That's pretty much my unfiltered first impression. Hope it helped.
However if you listen to internet radio from WinAmp or iTunes, Like.fm can keep track of the history so if you want to play a song again you can do that from the site.
Also the layout doesn't work well with smaller screens. The margins are cut off on my 13" MBP [2]. The width is >1200px. It should be 1000px max.
2. http://dl.dropbox.com/u/533753/Screen%20shot%202010-08-06%20...
I've actually never tested it with small screens so thanks for bringing that up.
Well there is a fixed position CSS box on the right with the main panel w/ overflow scrolling, so its just like an iframe.
Maybe its the small screen size, but it crowds up the layout.
Very cool app though.
EDIT: I'm not getting that error. Is it still happening?
You guys can check out a sample profile: http://like.fm/chris (it's mine).
Why should I use your interface when I have my music on my laptop?
It's a lightweight daemon that just sends your current iTunes track to Like.fm.
Then you just play songs in iTunes like normal, and rate songs in iTunes, and then it will show your current track, history, and top tracks on your Like.fm profile. You can also add that profile as a tab in your Facebook profile (as pictured on the home page).
I really didn't expect the MVP to be so confusing. Can you help me find better way to explain it?
My main goal with Like.fm is to have a music app where you can publish what you've listened to that isn't targeted at music enthusiasts (2 out of almost 300 facebook friends have a last.fm app installed). You can follow people and merge top tracks. It's extremely passive (no need to change music listening behavior) so it's easy to get started. Really you just install the desktop client and go about doing your music listening business. And when you want to peek at your friend's music just check out their profile or their facebook. If you want new songs, theoretically, the merged top tracks stream will have best new songs for you.
Passivity is key to Like.fm. It's not a niche community of music lovers. It's designed to layer over your regular listening habits, and grab some interesting info to share with people.
Currently, the only people who will actually download something that complements their music player (itunes, winamp,whatever) are music enthusiasts. Change that somehow and you're golden.