Last.fm Deploys Full and Free Music Tracks


I have long been a fan of the music recommendation, social networking community, and online radio site Last.fm. Now it just got even better. Where before they used to post short clips of most of the music, now all tracks are available in full.

Yes, free and in full. Your friend recommends an album? Go listen to it. If you like it then I am sure you will go buy it, but right now you can listen three times for nothing. More from the Last.fm blog …

As of today, you can play full-length tracks and entire albums for free on the Last.fm website. Something we’ve wanted for years—for people who visit Last.fm to be able to play any track for free—is now possible. With the support of the folks behind EMI, Sony BMG, Universal and Warner—and the artists they work with—plus thousands of independent artists and labels, we’ve made the biggest legal collection of music available to play online for free, the way we believe it should be. Full-length tracks are now available in the US, UK, and Germany, and we’re hard at work broadening our coverage into other countries.

Right now the artists and labels get a share of advertising revenue but they are working towards a subscription model.

Signing up is completely free. As I said above I was already a fan because it was the main way I discover new music ever since I left the world of office work surrounded by iPod owning colleagues. The ability to get recommendations and listen to the recommendation in full is just brilliant.


Along with those cool features, there are also iTunes and other media player plugins to allow you to record your listening habits and display the currently playing track in your IM client. Like most services now, you can create a profile, tag and make friends, all the trendy web2.0 stuff.

If you haven’t already tried Last.fm, now is the time to check it out!

Posted on January 24, 2008 by Chris Garrett 
Filed Under Web 2.0

Comments

2 Responses to “Last.fm Deploys Full and Free Music Tracks”

  1. Jack @ Tech Teapot on January 24th, 2008 2:25 pm

    Nice find Chris…this was a big gripe before with last.fm. Now that I’ve been booted off of pandora, and this change, last.fm is looking more attractive.

  2. Chris Garrett on January 24th, 2008 2:53 pm

    Yup, this just what I needed. I just hope the subscription option is reasonable! I am chrisgarrett on last.fm if you want to friend me :)

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