Even more site updates! I added a Last.FM badge to the left. Seems to be broken at the moment, but that’s not my fault - they’re having issues.
What’s Last.FM, I hear you ask? Actually, more likely, you’re shaking your head at my being late to the party. Last.FM’s YASNS (Yet Another Social Networking Site, patent pending Cafeman Incorporated), this one focused on musical tastes. Where it’s actually useful (unlike the vast number of “gee, look at my emo motif” sites) is that it correlates your musical tastes against other people and generates recommendations based on the overlaps. So, if you’re listening to particular types of music lately, it’ll start suggesting other bands that broadly correlate with the bands that you’ve been listening to.
Sure, there’s a whole social / group thing going on over there as well, but that sort of stuff gives my the shits to no end. I don’t have a Facebook page, I don’t have a MySpace page, and I’m only going to make one if and when I’m eventually forced to. I am on LinkedIn and Plaxo, but that’s for professional reasons - most of the people I know are on there in some form.
Updating your musical tastes would normally be a pain in the ass, but they’ve got a nice little client that apparently monitors what you’ve played in Winamp, Windows Media Player, and iTunes and automatically updates your profile with your latest listening preferences. I say apparently because as of right now, I still can’t get the iPod integration to work. I have it on good authority it does though, so when I get chance, I should start sending my personal information off to the combine for analysis.
I find the idea great because finding new music seems to be difficult. Pop’s easy (if frequently painful), but good music isn’t so easy. This looks like one that may actually be useful for once.