Last.fm FTW!

So this past week I have been playing around on last.fm and its great! Now, not many of my peers know much about this site so for me this was entering new territory. To be honest I didn't know what to expect when I signed up though admittedly I was probably thinking it would be something akin to albumhunt.com, some kind of network of pirated music for the masses. Instead I found last.fm to be one of the more comprehensive libraries of music I have been to online. Essentially last.fm is a social networking site with the main focus on music of all kinds, it has all the main conventions of social networking; profiles, commenting systems, group, photo and forum systems all designed to make you feel part of a community. The main feature is the radio channels. These are organized in to musical genre as well as artist. For example on joining last.fm prompts you to enter a few of your favorite artists and each of these artists act as a radio channel. This a really cool feature because it surprises you constantly with new music based on the style of the artist you are tuned in to. Related to this is the ability for the user to contribute to the music thats there, this too is achieved with SNS features. Importantly you can "tag" artists according to what genre or style of music you think they play, this essentially means the users are responsible for labeling the music and thus creating the music channels. One of the key features of last.fm is a piece of technology called the "scrobbler". This feature syncs your music library on your computer, iTunes and the like, with last.fm which in turn gives you a more accurate look at your musical spectrum. On the whole last.fm is an enjoyable experience and a good example of successful collective intelligence. I definitely recommend this site to all music lovers.