I just learned of last.fm and their Audioscrobbler plugin. Basically, if you have a compatible player, Audioscrobbler will capture everything you play and upload it to the last.fm mothership, where it will create a net radio station with stuff you should like, unless you listen to a lot of stuff you hate. It can also create you charts, hook you up with similar listeners, and offer feeds to embed in web sites or blogs like this one. Sadly, there’s no plugin for Rhapsody, but that already offers RSS feeds (see my page for an example). Rhapsody also has a radio station creator, but it’s pretty weak compared to Pandora‘s, and possibly last.fm’s.
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Well, perhaps I have not hit the right combination of search words. I went to last.fm and tried to find some materials. Lots of hits, but all of the selections have not yet been made available to be streamed !!! So it’s very frustrating to see that the material has been in a private listener’s queue but is unavailable to me. Very negative experience. Why would I want to go to a site that promises me tantalizing material but then tells me that the provider is too lazy to make it available to the rest of us? And if the purpose of the site is to make your private list viewable to the world, then its eventual effect will be to torture the rest of us. Please tell me if I’m missing the point. I think I am, in a big way.
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Did you sign up for the service, or were you expecting they’d just give the music away to strangers for free?
Actually, if you sign up, you do get a cost-free, ad-free custom radio station and player. Not bad. I signed up, and could preview (30 seconds) tracks on demand. But as I’ve said many times, nothing beats Rhapsody for music on demand.
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Hmmm…. I was actually expecting if for FREE !! Let me explain. There are plenty of streaming radio stations. They can do that because we don’t have a way to record that material being streamed (snicker, snicker). So I was expecting the user-defined material to be available in that manner,as well. These are just radio stations that play users’ lists. What is wrong with that model??
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Ok, now I understand what you’re saying. Unfortunately, the
‘Net radio station license does not allow what you want. The RIAA has all sorts of contracts for broadcast stations, ‘Net stations, subscription music services, television, etc. They all allow different things at different costs. The ‘Net radio station license allows Rhapsody to play ANY song they want, even those not in their catalog for subscription or purchase (even there, most songs are available for both, but not all). They can do a certain amount of tailoring based on user input, but are forbidden from allowing users to pick and choose their songs. On Pandora.com, you even have a limited number of song skips you can do per hour, and you can never replay a song. That level of control costs more money, which is why all services that allow that charge you, like Rhapsody’s $10/month. Sorry to disappoint, but hopefully I’ve cleared up the issue for you. It’s not the service’s fault, it’s the RIAA’s.
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