April 12 Site Update - track page beta, streaming changes

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MAY 20 UPDATE:
We just launched the new “Play direct from artist” feature we promised you on the blog. You can read all about it (and let us know what you think!) in our latest site update thread.

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APRIL 21 UPDATE:
An official update (based on your feedback) is now live, read it here:
http://blog.last.fm/2010/04/21/the-artist-feedback-loop
Keep it coming! :)

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Hi all,

We've just pushed a major Last.fm site update live.

If you haven't already, PLEASE READ THIS BLOG POST FIRST. It explains a lot of the thinking behind the changes and gives a broad overview of what's new.

Whenever we change something significant on Last.fm or want to try out a few new ideas, we sometimes do a subscriber beta first to spot bugs and get feedback before rolling it out more widely.

We're trying something a bit different with today's release — we've rolled out a redesigned track page (example) to everyone to collect feedback from as wide an audience as possible. The changes definitely represent where we're going in 2010, but before we integrate them more fully into Last.fm we need your feedback, thoughts, and ideas!

So, what's new? The major announcements are covered in the blog post, but here's a bit more detail as well as info on additional changes:

Partner play links

While we've retired our free on-demand programme (aka full-track streaming) which was running in the US, UK, and Germany, we've introduced new "playlinks" to some of our favourite partner services that scrobble. (Update: This doesn't affect Last.fm Radio, which still streams full tracks like it always did!)

Starting today, depending on where you live in the world, you will see links to Spotify, MOG, and The Hype Machine appear on some track pages. All of those services already support scrobbling – excepting MOG, who are rolling out scrobbling support very soon.

We know not everyone may be able to (or prefer to) use those particular partners, but we wanted to start small while building a system that will eventually connect you to all available streaming options for any track based on where you live and your own preferences.

In the meantime, we've matched approximately the most popular 2 million tracks on Last.fm against our partners' music catalogues, and we'll increase the number in the coming weeks. We're already talking to some other folks; the next partners we'll be integrating are We7 and VEVO (video scrobbling yeehaw!).

Do you find these links useful, and would you want to be able to access them in other places/pages? Who would you like us to work with next? What kind of customization options would you like to see?

Update: We're also bringing back full streaming for indie artist tracks soon, see this blog post for more details.

New listening graph and scrobblestats

Oh my god, it's full of scrobbles! The right side of our new track pages was inspired by the warm reception our best of 2009 roundup received at the end of last year. It's been fun figuring out how to scale it out to every track.

In addition to the new graph (which shows the number of listeners per week over the last six months), we've also added information about your relationship to the track (if you're logged in and have played / added / loved / banned it). Finally, we're also displaying the names of scrobbling clients wherever users listening now are shown – we think it's a great way to see how people are listening and discover cool new players & services.

Inline 30-second previews

Some of you old-timers may remember these from way back when — inline previews are back and they're pretty useful. Wherever a "play" button is shown next to a track, you can now sample it without leaving the page you're on. We've also tweaked the design of the play indicators to show whether artists and albums play on the radio.

Official videos retired, better Youtube embeds

Running a high-quality video streaming service requires a lot of resources, and not every person using Last.fm is interested in music videos. So we've replaced our own video player with higher-quality embeds from YouTube. For users in the US and Canada we'll be integrating VEVO videos too, and you'll be able to scrobble them (both on Last.fm and elsewhere on the web).

Where's my profile page player go?

The music player on profile pages was seeing extremely low use, even before the retirement of full-length track playback, so we've removed it. This makes the pages load faster, and moves the "About Me" section closer to the top of the page (a long-standing user request). We know some of you liked choosing the list of tracks that appeared there, so we’d like your ideas about putting other kinds of music content on your profile — your loved tracks, your tag cloud, a listening trend graph, or something else entirely? Let us know.

Over to you

There are a few other touches and small changes we're trying out here and there, but we'll let you discover those and tell us what you think! We'll do our best to answer your questions in this thread (apologies if we're a bit quiet during the wee hours in London), and we'll be listening carefully to all your comments, criticisms, and ideas.

Happy scrobbling!

flaneur said:
Inline 30-second previews

Some of you old-timers may remember these from way back when — inline previews are back and they're pretty useful. Wherever a "play" button is shown next to a track, you can now sample it without leaving the page you're on. We've also tweaked the design of the play indicators to show whether artists and albums play on the radio.


Fucking YES.
Still a bit far off from where it was before... but it's a good start.

Also, while I'm here, the big "play me" buttons on artists' pages are slightly bigger than the pictures on their page, and hence looks a little untidy.

nice

omgwtfbbq.

I think the radio button on track pages should be smaller.

I like it =)

yayy for no more players on our profile pages.

and very sad to see on-demand tracks go. very sad indeed.

will have more feedback soon.

Glad to see the profile radio player thing has been removed. More space = good times.

And I'm liking the statistics on the track pages. Nice work.

Anyone know a good l.fm alternative? Somewhere I can actually listen to music?

yeah. so we can't listen to full tracks on last.fm anymore, accept they are free-mp3s we can download? this is bad :( i liked to listen music on last.fm ... or do i look wrong? is there any button beside the 30-sec-preview one?

<3

Yeah, looks good guys!

Hehe, so I'm now feeling awesomely smug/psychic about this post:

StudleyUK said:
Jester-NL said:
Wow... and nobody mentioned "On demand plays yet... get them out of the beta!!Am I the only one who favours get rid of them altogether?I've not got much chance to explore until this evening, but in general... love it! In particular, delighted to see that Last.fm is positioning itself as (the best) radio service, and embracing other on-demand services, rather than trying to partially compete with them and confusing the heck out of people.

As for "other ideas for the future"... well, I'm sure you'll hear them from me soon enough ;)

I don't get it. Does this mean I can only listen to 30 second previews from now on, instead of full tracks? I tried to listen to some of my fav tracks that used to be full length, and all I got was a 30 sec preview. had to download the mp3 and add it to iTunes to be able to listen to it. That sucks, pardon my French.