LastFM Editor's Review

The LastFM application is one of the elements that are required for you to use Last.FM services.

You can use this application only if you have a Last.FM account. Without one you won't be able to use the functionality of this piece of software.

LastFM's main functionality is the 'scrobbling'. The Last.FM's definition upon this term is: "Scrobbling a song means that when you listen to it, the name of the song is sent to Last.fm and added to your music profile.".

There were some discussions upon this sending data to producer's servers. Some people say that this application is spyware. I say that this application can't be spyware since it is released under a Open Source licensing.

The scrobbling is powered by Audioscrobbler.net which is a large database that tracks the listening habits of the users. Based on these statistics, LastFM generates a list of 'neighbors', people who listen the same stuff as you do, and it generates recommendations. Both of these are available either on your Dashboard that you can find online into your Last.FM profile, or you can find this data into the LastFM application.

The Audioscrobbler needs a plugin into your audio player that communicates which track are you currently listening. The application integrates well into iTunes.

You can add to the scrobbled material tags, you can hit the 'Love' button, or the 'Ban' button, or you can recommend the scrobbled material to others. These actions also influence the statistics from your Last.FM page.

Besides the scrobbling activity, and related things to the scrobbling, you can also play the music that's streamed directly from Last.FM servers. You can play either a radio of your friends and neighbors, a recommendation, or a track that you could find on the site.

Pluses: it can scrobble tracks to Last.FM and it can do related actions, it integrates with Last.FM services.

Drawbacks / flaws:

In conclusion: this is an application dedicated to Last.FM users. Without this piece of software you can't use all the services provided by Last.FM. The fact that the application is Open Source under GPL shows that Last.FM has nothing to hide, and the only data that is sent to their services is the name of the tracks that you play, and not your private data.

version reviewed: 1.1.3.0 (BETA)