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Last.fm Radio release!

Tuesday, Mar 24. 2009 – Category: Songbird

It’s official… after many beers weeks of development, we’re ready to release Last.fm Radio support for Songbird. If you haven’t gotten the Last.fm/Audioscrobbler add-on update yet you should be getting it soon… (or you can go install it manually from the add-ons site).

Here’s a few of the features provided by the new Last.fm radio support:

Geolocates your IP and presents the most popular artists & tags from your country on Last.fm on the homepage (in case you were wondering why certain artists may appear there)
Last.fm webpage links for “Play <foo> radio” get redirected to use the Songbird Last.fm Radio support
Dynamic links on the sidebar for your Last.fm favourite/most played artists (based on your scrobbling history)
Links on the sidebar for your friends and neighbours’ stations
Dynamic links on the sidebar for your Last.fm stations based on your Songbird library’s highest rated and highest playcount artists.
Click around and explore artist, tags, and Last.fm users
Easily jump off to station webpages to read more from Last.fm
When you authenticate with the extension it logs you in for both scrobbling and the Last.fm webpage

Note that due to recent changes Last.fm has made (recently being today), only US, UK, and Germany users can listen to radio for free. Users in other countries will have to pay €3.00/month to Last.fm to listen to Last.fm Radio. Sorry, but it’s their service and nothing we can control.

Tags: last.fm, radio

One Trackback to “Last.fm Radio release!”

n3wblog » Blog Archive » Last.fm continues alienating music-lovers
March 30th, 2009 at 04:55

15 Comments to “Last.fm Radio release!”

tylerstyle Says:
March 24th, 2009 at 10:58
Since we Europeans got locked out of Pandora, I don’t feel the slightest compassion for you non Europeans right now )))
Warll Says:
March 24th, 2009 at 11:15
@Tyler: Germany + UK /= Europe.
wax Says:
March 24th, 2009 at 12:12
This is a great plugin. Just testing it. Thank´s!
milan Says:
March 24th, 2009 at 12:22
@Warli: very very rude and pretentious.

i hope the rest of songbird crew is less racist because i really like the possibility this app is giving.
Nick M Says:
March 24th, 2009 at 14:53
Looks pretty sweet, just one small thing though, I think the fonts could use a bit of tweeking on XP.

I’m really loving the whole Songbird + last.fm combination, I just wish I had the internet at home so I could update some of my addons.
streetdaddy Says:
March 24th, 2009 at 20:18
bah humbug! I was really looking forward to you releasing this, and then just days before Last.fm has barred me pending payment… it’s not easy being a tight-arse.
Acey Says:
March 24th, 2009 at 23:31
How unfortunate timing for this nice addon…

I guess Last.fm isn’t that sympathetic music lover’s mecca on the net that they would have you believe but just another place where they try to grab your money.

I’ve been with the service since 2005 and have never seen a worse decision coming from them. Guess it’s not about the love of music after all. Just the love of money…
Antonio Says:
March 25th, 2009 at 01:31
Great app!

One request: When I switch to the last.fm radio my mashtap bar disappears. Anyway you could make it still available?
Totoche Says:
March 25th, 2009 at 01:35
Good new,

BUT… (http://blog.last.fm/2009/03/24/lastfm-radio-announcement)

“Today we’re announcing an upcoming change to the way Last.fm Radio works in some parts of the world. In the United States, United Kingdom and Germany, nothing will change.

In all other countries, listening to Last.fm Radio will soon require a subscription of €3.00 per month. There will be a 30 track free trial…”

And I’m french … so byebye LastFM !
Nukeador Says:
March 25th, 2009 at 15:30
As far As I know, Last.fm is going to change their API to adapt to this premium only service. Months waiting for this extension and now I won’t be able to use it, Spotify API anyone?
streetdaddy Says:
March 25th, 2009 at 20:48
is it possible to ‘Love’ tracks from within the plugin? It’s not a big deal coz I can still do it via the official client, though it’d be nice to not have to run it as well, seems like overkill…
Stephen Lau Says:
March 25th, 2009 at 20:50
Yup – in the faceplate area (where the currently playing track is showing), right next to the rating/stars there is a little Heart icon. You can ‘love’ a track by clicking on that.
streetdaddy Says:
March 25th, 2009 at 21:26
lolz thanks Stephen, I’ll blame that oversite on my monitor brightness… My faceplate is using a dark them and it’s really hard to see any of those icons. Absolutely loving the plugin, now just waiting for Last.fm to apply the restrictions to the API so I can start hurling abuse at something.
cwilliams Says:
March 26th, 2009 at 10:17
Beyond the subscription required for most countries, did you see this Stephen:

http://www.last.fm/group/Last.fm+Web+Services/forum/21604/_/517212

“Last.fm has never had a public radio API, although we’ve tolerated third-party clients using the undocumented calls that our client uses. This is finally about to change – we’re going to make a public, documented streaming API available to everyone who has an API account. There are a few limitations:

Only subscribers will be allowed to stream using API applications unless you negotiate a separate deal with us – we need to get the money to cover royalties.”

So it sounds like a paid account will be required to stream in Songbird even in the US, UK, and Germany! Just when I started using Last.fm 2 weeks ago, and just when Songbird started experimenting with even deeper integration!
Ginger Says:
March 26th, 2009 at 15:09
Great job on the add-on. It really is a pity that Last.fm decided to change their service just as you released this. =(