Personalized Radio… Based On Your MP3s

Culture

from the smart dept

Wired News is running a story about Last.fm, an internet radio station that goes a bit beyond most internet radio stations in its ability to personalize what you hear. While most stations require users to rate a variety of songs to come up with a profile of what you like, Last.fm uses plugin Audioscrobbler to comb your hard drive for music files and build a profile of what you like. It will then create a personalized station based on what you already had on your hard drive. It also includes other features, such as the ability to listen to other users’ radio stations. The company is perfectly legal, having paid for online radio licenses from the music industry. What’s interesting is the company’s business model: they’re selling market research to record labels. What the article doesn’t say is whether or not this scares off any users who don’t like the thought of a list of what they have on their hard drive being sent to record labels (though, obviously, Last.fm isn’t sending lists of specific hard drives, but more aggregate data). Either way, it sounds like a cool use of the technology for those who don’t mind sharing what they’re listening to.