I really like the friend features of last.fm. I would rather not eat up bandwidth with radio.. so I just use it to log all my tunes and so my friends and i can share our latest listens.
Jonathan Moore
· 1 year ago
I started using Pandora Jam (not for the questionable 'recording' features to save Pandora tracks) because it will "scrobble" all the tracks I listen to and add them to Last.fm. Now that I have quite a bit of tracks logged in Last.fm the results on my recommendation station have been much better. Throughout the day I'll jump between the two services.
The one thing I really like about Pandora is being able to put together a Quick Mix of several different artists that typically wouldn't go together.
Social Sound System
· 1 year ago
I might be THE Pandora power listener. No, seriously. I keep asking them to hook me up with someone who uses the service as prolifically as myself. I've always bookmarked songs and artist knowing that someone would put my data to work. Swirl, Favtape, & SonicLiving filled that void.
The way I look at it, people will be able to go back & look/listen to my musical journal. I want Pandora to do more with their data though. Give us sonic trends for example.
Http://www.pandora.com/people/socialsoundsystem
Rocky
· 1 year ago
if you like both, you can try pandora.fm -it takes all the songs you listen to on pandora and scrobbles thems in last.fm. also, this new site songza.com is really good for "on-demand" listening.
Arnie McKinnis
· 1 year ago
Got to give Pandora two thumbs up -- they have never disappointed with their music selection. In fact, I have playlist on my Rhapsody called "Pandora Suggests" - that way I keep up with the suggested artists with the info provided by Rhapsody. Thanks for the comparison.
VitaminCM
· 1 year ago
I like the data logging of Last.FM a lot. However I think that Pandora just sends me better music. I learn about most of my newer bands from pandora.
Matt
· 1 year ago
Pandora should use the crowdsourcing method that Last.fm has and allow me to listen to it however I like. (Flash takes up a TON of RAM for me, and I don't have a lot of RAM or money.) It should also change its name and website to Pandora.fm and it'll be perfect. :)
Based on the music alone, Pandora wins. But I currently listen to Last.fm because of its audioscrobbling, all the social goodies, and the API to listen to it.
Matt
· 1 year ago
As someone who works at home, I just listen to the music on my computer, so I use Last.fm.
andyjacobson
· 1 year ago
Last.fm can be incorporated into my Facebook page—letting my friends know what I'm listening to. I don't think Pandora can do that.
Guest
· 1 year ago
no offense but that is one thing that no friend really cares about, especially on an already overcrowded Facebook page
cbiggins
· 1 year ago
I liked Pandora till they stopped allowing us Australians to listen. :( Now its all last.fm www.last.fm/user/cbiggins/
Maxime Theriault
· 1 year ago
Yep, that's my case as a well as a Canadian. It's unfortunate.
Karl G. Siewert
· 1 year ago
Like Rocky, I have recently been playing with the pandora.fm mashup because I like Pandora's interface and have set up a lot of stations there, but I have more friends who use Last,and I want to share with them. My big complaint right now is that, like many other developers, both platforms have jumped to make iPhone apps, but have left BlackBerry users like myself in the lurch. I'd love to be able to listen to streaming audio on my Curve with my unlimited data plan, but haven't yet found a way.
Vince
· 1 year ago
+1 for last.fm It's got an android app that works well
although I will be giving pandora a look
Matt Singley is the best!
Ellen
· 1 year ago
I think Last.fm is more of a music nerds paradise. It allows us to find other people who like music just as much and are just as particular about what we listen to. I do think Pandora's radio has a better listening quality, but I don't believe Last.fm really is there for the same purpose. Plus, Last.fm has incorporated concert listings into the site so you can find out who else in your area is going to the same shows as you and you can communicate with those people about it.
WindPower
· 1 year ago
Pandora doesn't stream music outside the US. 'Nuff said.
Ryan
· 1 year ago
For those that like the visual component, we at Highnote extended our Internet Radio concept to include music videos. Watch customized music video channels seeded with an artist, genre, or specific music video. You can try it out at http://gethighnote.com/
Jon Smirl
· 1 year ago
I abandoned Pandora last month when they switched from a three hour "are you listening" popup to a one hour one. I don't like being interrupted in the middle of my work to go click on a stupid popup all of the time. The music selection on Pandora was better, but the popup sent me back to last.fm.
Memory is also an issue. My last.fm player is 400KB. Pandora is 220MB plus the browser. That's an insane amount of memory for a music player.
Marie Goltara
· 1 year ago
I started listening to Pandora, but became frustrated when the same songs started playing 3 to 4 times during my work day. When I tried last.fm, I enjoyed the similar artists a lot more and have actually purchased more music for this reason. While last.fm may not play the artist you would like as often as you would like, I find the music recommendations to be much more enjoyable.
brent(inWorship)
· 1 year ago
I am a Pandora fan.. I started on last.fm. It was fine, but when I saw pandora and started using it, it just connected with me. I think it was more of a usability thing for me. I wasn't interested in the social aspect that last.fm offers, I just wanted to listen to music. pandora looked and felt good and I never really thought about it. i just pushed play and was always happy. And, still am.
Rhett Smith
· 1 year ago
Matt,
Thanks for this post. I have been playing around with Pandora for a while and I kept reading people's tweets about last.fm. Felt like I was missing out on something, but your post pretty much confirmed what I had been feeling and thinking about Pandora. I also like that "artisan" touch as you put it......
Even though I wish I listened to more music during the day, i think that I'm ready to take a deeper plunge as I've sorted through the options you mention.
Thanks for bringing this to my attention...I will be back on Pandora tomorrow.
...or is another reason you're excluded it from your considerations
nothing to download ...works well ...perhaps not as sophisticated as last.fm or Pnadora
Michael Sainz
· 1 year ago
I didn't even think of using an internet radio service until now but this post caught my attention and I am SO sold! Love the detail...didn't even know there was a social aspect to these services.
I'm new to the site but articles like these from Matt and Adam are simply awesome!
Michael Espinosa
· 1 year ago
I have been using Pandora Jam (http://www.bitcartel.com/pandorajam/) for about six months and have been very pleased. I like the recommendations and the fact that I can use PJ sans a browser. I have really given last.fm a fair shake though so playing favorites a little.
Tor Erling
· 1 year ago
Well, I can't use pandora since they only streams to the us.. So I use last.fm, and i really do love it :)
George
· 1 year ago
I can't use Pandora now, but I was lucky to hear of the site when you could sign in giving a false zip code and having access to the service. It was very good then even if the version now is totally different and I guess more advanced. I signed in to last.fm, but I haven’t set up anything yet there so I don’t have any feedback for it.
But, since it had beta invites I started using Jango and I’m totally happy with it. It plays nicely, it varies the songs quite logically and it gives social features. I hope it gets more attention because it deserves it and I hope for a head to head article of these two with Jango.
Josh2.0
· 1 year ago
Hi George, I posted in this thread, but wanted to ask you personally for some music recommendations for Jango (where I'm the music supervisor). I'd love for you to send me a top 10 list of Greek music we don't have. Anything goes, rock, pop, electronic, hiphop... Just whoever the massive artists are in Greece that I don't know about.
My email is music (at) jango (dot) com, and I look forward to filling any requests you might send. Just put you're name in the subject line and I'll be doubly sure to check it out.
Thanks, Josh2.0
AC
· 1 year ago
This article is useless for anyone living outside the United States.
Leandro
· 1 year ago
Pandora do not works on many countries. Last.fm is a really great social tool also. Events and groups, rules!
Tor Erling
· 1 year ago
All that is well and good, this still is a useless article for most people, since it is about a us only product mostly, I don't care how good pandora is, if it doesn't work I'd call it broken. Pandora doesn't work for most people because of the silly little us only thing, that means it is a broken product for most people. Well at least if you do have friends from outside your own country...
Crystal
· 1 year ago
@Matt - did you just listened to the artist radio on Last.fm instead of creating a playlist of artists and listening to your library radio? i find they play a better, more tailored selection of music (vs. Pandora) when you try it that way. AND you can look up individual songs on Last.fm! can't do that on Pandora. hopefully, one day Last.fm apps will be equivalent to the quality of Pandora's.
Robert
· 1 year ago
Also Pandora works not only on edge, but also in the basement of my gym... Last.fm not so much.
Aaron Wallis
· 1 year ago
Last.fm is my fave by far for one obvious reason... Pandora isn't available in Australia :D
Aaron Wallis
· 1 year ago
Last.fm is my fave by far for one obvious reason... Pandora isn't available in Australia :D
Other than that the alternatives aren't nearly as full featured, also, the fact that i've clocked in nearly 45k scrobbles on last.fm means their selections are pretty darn tailored to my tastes, no other social network could claim to hold so much data on me.
jmccartie
· 1 year ago
Just went to Jango and entered one of my fav bands: marjorie fair. no matches. Pandora? Full station. Screw you, jango.
jmccartie
· 1 year ago
@George No, I'm not a Pandora employee, nor any tie to any companies in this space.
I was excited to hear about another music service and quickly visited the site. At that exact moment, I was listening to a station I created keying off Marjorie Fair. Entering that band in Jango returned no results.
So a band with only one album, and that album being older than 2 years, should simply be excused from an online music source? I figured depth and breadth would be part of the criteria here. No?
WindPower
· 1 year ago
@Matt Singley In love with Last.fm so far <3
Tor Erling
· 1 year ago
@Matt I really like last.fm I do. I used memix and grooveshark for a while, but I missed being able to update my blog with what I've been listening too, and the ability to get my favorites saved over at friendfeed. I still use songza if I want to hear a single song, I just don't get why choosing to excluding all these other services and at the same time write an article that is useless for based on the comments, a third of your users. It just doesn't make any sense to me.
We are deeply, deeply sorry to say that due to licensing constraints, we can no longer allow access to Pandora for listeners located outside of the U.S. We will continue to work diligently to realize the vision of a truly global Pandora, but for the time being we are required to restrict its use. We are very sad to have to do this, but there is no other alternative.
Sohit Karol
· 1 year ago
Pandora...Any day!!
Jared Still
· 1 year ago
Matt...super well written piece.
I have yet to jump into last.fm or pandora, but am relatively familiar/aware of both. This article is perfect for me, b/c based on your feedback and my listening/mobile preferences, Pandora seems like it would be best for me too.
Again, thanks for the great piece, it's evident you really, really did your homework!
cheers.
Josh2.0
· 1 year ago
@george @jmccartie @everyone
Hi all, I'm Josh2.0, the music supervisor at Jango. I noticed a couple of comments in this thread and thought I'd take the time to respond, as well as solicit requests...
George is correct, Jango has existed for just one short year now (I've been here since the summer), and we are still deep in the process of filling out our catalog. As you might imagine, acquiring the whole of recorded music is an expensive, time-consuming business. However we are doing our best, adding thousands of songs every week, fielding user requests, ensuring genre coverage, etc. That said, because Jango is such a young site, there are still many gaps in the catalog.
So I'd like to offer you all the opportunity to contribute to our effort. Requests can be emailed directly to me, and should follow these guidelines:
-for indie, electronica, and other modern acts, at least 4,000 listeners on last.fm -not released in the last week (we have it, it's just not live yet) -not some canonical delta blues/traditional folk/memphis soul/etc. artist we just haven't had a chance to procure yet. i genre fill every week, and that list is already long enough. -not your cousin's friend's coworker's plumber's son's band
That's about it really. Requests can be sent to me via music(at)jango(dot)com. Thanks in advance for anything you care to send, & helping make the internet a better place.
Josh2.0
Md
· 1 year ago
I have never used any of those sites, I'm always on imeem, and that's cool for me... :)
John Grinde
· 1 year ago
I prefer Pandora, as it seems to learn what I like based on thumbs-up/thumbs-down ratings better than "liking" a song on Last.fm.
jmccartie
· 12 months ago
@george -- I agree, I would not expect a young service to have as much depth. But that's my point. Jango does not yet have the depth of either pandora nor last.fm.
"I mean you tried the service by asking something not common" -- see above. This points to a lack of depth. I'm not discounting Jango from getting there eventually, but right now, it lacks the depth to compete. If it makes you happy, I'll be sure to check them out again in a few months.
Jake
· 11 months ago
i think it depends on what you're trying to do. if you're just looking to listen to online radio to make the day go faster at work or to discover new artists pandora is your cup of tea. if you're looking to play your own music and share it with friends (and connect with a community of people for recommendations, concerts, groups or just to shoot the breeze) then last.fm is for you. i love scrobbling my songs, checking charts each week to see which group/artist had the most plays. pandora is easy listening. last.fm is high fidelity (the film) for the music snob.
Ilya
· 11 months ago
Based on last.fm APIs http://gigfreaks.com provides even smarter events and concerts recommendations and tickets.
lolek
· 8 months ago
yeah, it's all about the music.. and that's why for me last.fm is the winner. Trying to create European station on pandora, I had to babysit it and carefully remove everything even a little bit hip-hopish or jazz-like, because if anything like this was left there (even if I liked it), the whole station was shifting into that direction - simply, there is much more American music in Pandora's database. It's database didn't recognize many important European artists, there was no world music (and, possibly, Music genome Projects is unable to see the difference between European and American style - after all, the factors which are listed in "why did you play this song", can be applied to very different styles). Last.fm, on the other side, not only had the songs, but seems to know what I used to have on my tapes along with the songs I selected.
Thomas
· 8 months ago
Last.fm = clear winner. I know people say they get better music more consistently from Pandora, but I have found countless artists by listening to the last.fm radio. It is more comprehensive too, in that I can learn more about an individual song (see the lyrics, watch the music video, see what others think, etc.) and is a great way to share music with my friends. It keeps me updated with who's playing live in my area, and gives me the ability to track what I'm listening to.
Pandora looks cool, but Last.fm is clearly the better provider of a range of music/artist content.
lola mullen
· 8 months ago
As a musician, last.fm is great in that it allows users to also have musician accounts, and for listeners all over the world to find, listen to, and comment on their music. However, Pandora's interface is much nicer and the Blackberry app is fantastic. I use both depending on what I am feeling in the mood for: a specific playlist of music I already own (iTunes/Audioscrobbler/last.fm) or new stuff based on artists I love (Pandora). Both have definite positives...
Mike
· 6 months ago
Last.fm beat Pandora to the XBOX360 stream. great move.
dizzy goodletspeak
· 5 months ago
LAST.FM hands down!!!!!!! I started with Pandora, spent a couple weeks on it. Each time, I ended up switching to listening CDs because the tracks that the radio stations generated for me were just wayyy too mediocre (they seemed to always land on that one track off the album that I didn't care for....I mean, it was amazing actually, they'd choose an album that I liked every track except one off of, and then play that track, lol). Let me add, that I tried this with numerous genres (from Pharcyde radio, to Frank Zappa radio, to Miles Davis radio, to Talking Heads radio, and the list goes....). When I'm not feeling a song, I hit the 'skip' button. Pandora=6 skips / hr, and then won't let you skip anymore! wtf?!?!? Last.fm=infinite skips....ahhhhhhhhh, relief. AND, last.fm's international & reports to artist royalty collection agencies, which is a really nice thing for all the indy musicians out there, whose food budgets that actually affects, lol.
All Comments
The one thing I really like about Pandora is being able to put together a Quick Mix of several different artists that typically wouldn't go together.
The way I look at it, people will be able to go back & look/listen to my musical journal. I want Pandora to do more with their data though. Give us sonic trends for example.
Http://www.pandora.com/people/socialsoundsystem
Based on the music alone, Pandora wins. But I currently listen to Last.fm because of its audioscrobbling, all the social goodies, and the API to listen to it.
Now its all last.fm www.last.fm/user/cbiggins/
It's got an android app that works well
although I will be giving pandora a look
Matt Singley is the best!
'Nuff said.
Memory is also an issue. My last.fm player is 400KB. Pandora is 220MB plus the browser. That's an insane amount of memory for a music player.
Thanks for this post. I have been playing around with Pandora for a while and I kept reading people's tweets about last.fm. Felt like I was missing out on something, but your post pretty much confirmed what I had been feeling and thinking about Pandora. I also like that "artisan" touch as you put it......
Even though I wish I listened to more music during the day, i think that I'm ready to take a deeper plunge as I've sorted through the options you mention.
Thanks for bringing this to my attention...I will be back on Pandora tomorrow.
rhett
...or is another reason you're excluded it from your considerations
nothing to download ...works well ...perhaps not as sophisticated as last.fm or Pnadora
I'm new to the site but articles like these from Matt and Adam are simply awesome!
I signed in to last.fm, but I haven’t set up anything yet there so I don’t have any feedback for it.
But, since it had beta invites I started using Jango and I’m totally happy with it. It plays nicely, it varies the songs quite logically and it gives social features.
I hope it gets more attention because it deserves it and I hope for a head to head article of these two with Jango.
My email is music (at) jango (dot) com, and I look forward to filling any requests you might send. Just put you're name in the subject line and I'll be doubly sure to check it out.
Thanks,
Josh2.0
Last.fm is a really great social tool also. Events and groups, rules!
Other than that the alternatives aren't nearly as full featured, also, the fact that i've clocked in nearly 45k scrobbles on last.fm means their selections are pretty darn tailored to my tastes, no other social network could claim to hold so much data on me.
I was excited to hear about another music service and quickly visited the site. At that exact moment, I was listening to a station I created keying off Marjorie Fair. Entering that band in Jango returned no results.
So a band with only one album, and that album being older than 2 years, should simply be excused from an online music source? I figured depth and breadth would be part of the criteria here. No?
I still use songza if I want to hear a single song, I just don't get why choosing to excluding all these other services and at the same time write an article that is useless for based on the comments, a third of your users. It just doesn't make any sense to me.
We are deeply, deeply sorry to say that due to licensing constraints, we can no longer allow access to Pandora for listeners located outside of the U.S. We will continue to work diligently to realize the vision of a truly global Pandora, but for the time being we are required to restrict its use. We are very sad to have to do this, but there is no other alternative.
I have yet to jump into last.fm or pandora, but am relatively familiar/aware of both. This article is perfect for me, b/c based on your feedback and my listening/mobile preferences, Pandora seems like it would be best for me too.
Again, thanks for the great piece, it's evident you really, really did your homework!
cheers.
Hi all, I'm Josh2.0, the music supervisor at Jango. I noticed a couple of comments in this thread and thought I'd take the time to respond, as well as solicit requests...
George is correct, Jango has existed for just one short year now (I've been here since the summer), and we are still deep in the process of filling out our catalog. As you might imagine, acquiring the whole of recorded music is an expensive, time-consuming business. However we are doing our best, adding thousands of songs every week, fielding user requests, ensuring genre coverage, etc. That said, because Jango is such a young site, there are still many gaps in the catalog.
So I'd like to offer you all the opportunity to contribute to our effort. Requests can be emailed directly to me, and should follow these guidelines:
-for indie, electronica, and other modern acts, at least 4,000 listeners on last.fm
-not released in the last week (we have it, it's just not live yet)
-not some canonical delta blues/traditional folk/memphis soul/etc. artist we just haven't had a chance to procure yet. i genre fill every week, and that list is already long enough.
-not your cousin's friend's coworker's plumber's son's band
That's about it really. Requests can be sent to me via music(at)jango(dot)com. Thanks in advance for anything you care to send, & helping make the internet a better place.
Josh2.0
"I mean you tried the service by asking something not common" -- see above. This points to a lack of depth. I'm not discounting Jango from getting there eventually, but right now, it lacks the depth to compete. If it makes you happy, I'll be sure to check them out again in a few months.
Pandora looks cool, but Last.fm is clearly the better provider of a range of music/artist content.
Pandora=6 skips / hr, and then won't let you skip anymore! wtf?!?!?
Last.fm=infinite skips....ahhhhhhhhh, relief.
AND, last.fm's international & reports to artist royalty collection agencies, which is a really nice thing for all the indy musicians out there, whose food budgets that actually affects, lol.
The choice is clear to me...