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Comment by michh | Hacker News Reader

Does anyone know how Last.fm is doing? I still love it, but I've seen a lot of friends move away from it, to services that don't quite do the same like Spotify and Grooveshark.

Is that just my friends or have they experienced a massive exodus? I'd be sad if CBS pulled the plug at some point in the near future.

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I'm slightly obsessed with scrobbling and checking what I've been listening to over the last [N] months. And last.fm recommendations beat every other service I've come across.

But in terms of actual listening; I barely use it.

I still use it, and most of my friends still use it, though I suspect that using it solely for the statistics probably makes me (well, my friends too) an odd man out.

The only time I've ever considered switching was when I was debating writing a program to take the statistics myself, but then again... why bother?

Regardless, I know way more people using last.fm than I do who use Grooveshark, and I don't really know anybody who uses Spotify. I'm not worried about last, but you never know, maybe I should be.

Here's a free software replacement for last.fm scrobbling: http://libre.fm/

I still use last.fm myself though.

Also http://like.fm.

I use it: http://like.fm/chris

You might be interested in a side project of mine, that lets you visualise your last.fm listening history. I'm looking for feedback (and the touch of a designer) before I launch it.

http://markhansen.co.nz/scatter.fm

I enjoy using it as a statistics aggregator as well. Last.fm definitely gets credit for capturing the primal sense of achievement with scrobbling. People I know don't really use it as a social network other than friending each other, but even that is sufficient because it allows you to peek into their current musical tastes. It's sort of elegant how Last.fm's experience is pretty much just collecting data and displaying it nicely; no need for apps, uploading user content, or location-based gimmicks. Just listening to your music library is generating content enough.

As far as listening goes, most people I know use Pandora.

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