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The lack of recommended reading makes it very hard to promote music on last.fm

 
  • it's not only happening for independent artists. since the new site and the lack of the good recommendation system our "full length previews" have dropped radically, too.
    I really hope that it gets back the way it was asap.

  • social music devolution

    thanks, everyone, for raising these issues that are of great concern to independent artists

    for sure, priorities change when a giant multinational takes over a grassroots outfit which has happened here on Last.fm; the real telling thing will be if, and, how quickly, the social network elements that have been dismantled are restored

    you could call what's happened a social music devolution - question is, will things be remedied so that Last.fm remains a boon to indies, or, have we already seen the end of the revolution?

    does big business inevitably squash the independents?

    "Why music?" "Why breathing?"
  • p.s.

    this may be unrelated to the discussion here, but, does anyone know what happened with the Beggars/XL situation as was talked about on the thread @ http://www.last.fm/forum/21713/_/367092

    "Why music?" "Why breathing?"
  • any more word on any of these things of relevance to artists?

    "Why music?" "Why breathing?"
  • No more than one response from Last.fm so far to this whole thread in which dedicated independent artists have expressed their concerns about what's happened to us since the changeover to the new site.

    A new issue is that, to deal with the problem of having no 'recommend to all friends' feature any more, some of us have gone to the trouble of hand copying friends names into notepad documents to put in the recommendations box and recommend our and other people's music this way. This appears to have now been blocked too.

    Today I am unable to send a recommendation to more than 11 friends at a time before getting the error message:

    "You’ve exceeded the limit for sending messages"

    What's going on Last.fm?

    • kb7clx said...
    • User
    • 29 Aug 2008, 17:13
    Since users can't block specific people from sending them messages I guess this was the next best spam fighter they could think of. I'm just thankful I don't have to fill out a CAPTCHA every time I send a message like I do on Imeem... yet.

    • tergan said...
    • Subscriber
    • 29 Aug 2008, 18:33
    once i saw that many of the initial bugs and glitches with the transition were being fixed fairly quickly, and with the understanding that certain features would at some point return in some form, i was actually quite happy with the new site and optimistic about lastfm rising like a phoenix better than ever. Though many existing users were having issues adapting, i felt that overall the site would be easier for new users to understand and utilize, and i've enjoyed some of the new functionality.

    but now the continuing and new bugs, and some of the intentional changes that they have chosen to make, are really very discouraging!

    I have a few new projects i would like to release here, but i'm not feeling very comfortable about doing it while so many ongoing issues persist :(

    nor am i comfortable sending people to lastfm while it is falling so short of its potential and its full normal functioning.

  • kb7clx said:
    Since users can't block specific people from sending them messages I guess this was the next best spam fighter they could think of. I'm just thankful I don't have to fill out a CAPTCHA every time I send a message like I do on Imeem... yet.


    The only people you can recommend to are friends, who have agreed to be sent recs by you. If they don't like the recs, it's one click to disconnect the friendship. There is no spam issue here.

    loss of the ability to let our friends/fans know about new material
    +
    loss of group recommendations for our music
    =
    no effective ways of getting our music known or heard at Last.fm

  • tergan said:
    I have a few new projects i would like to release here, but i'm not feeling very comfortable about doing it while so many ongoing issues persist :(

    nor am i comfortable sending people to lastfm while it is falling so short of its potential and its full normal functioning.


    I have a new album that I'm really excited about coming up, but why the hell would I point people to lastfm to listen to it now? Can't even listen to an album in its entirety.

    Marie, I had taken to the old notepad system but learning that they've effectively put a stop to that...

    WTF LASTFM?! Listen to us!

    My music: The Peach Tree
    My label: Tribal Dancing Kid
    My reviewing blog: Gus Reviews
    My demeanour: \m/o_0\m/
    • Babs_05 said...
    • Forum Moderator
    • 30 Aug 2008, 19:26
    I had a bright idea last night - http://www.last.fm/forum/5/_/453605

    (reco reading thread in Forums, pending the real thing)

    • kb7clx said...
    • User
    • 31 Aug 2008, 14:57
    Pixieguts said:
    The only people you can recommend to are friends, who have agreed to be sent recs by you. If they don't like the recs, it's one click to disconnect the friendship. There is no spam issue here.

    Really? I hadn't experimented with this since the advent of the new site, but on the old site you could indeed write in names of non-friends and send them recs, I've gotten no less than 3 of these since I've been using last.fm, 2 from artists and one from a new group leader. I in turn sent the group leader in question some recs without requesting friendship and she received them. Has this changed? I'll have to experiment with this. I'll send gamoneterik a rec to my most recently played song and see what happens.

    • kb7clx said...
    • User
    • 31 Aug 2008, 15:11

    Seems like it still works

    I got a positive confirmation when I sent a rec to gamoneterik
    for a track, Drag Queen that I was just listening to. This could be one of those misconceptions the majority of people have had about how the system works simply because they never thought of trying it out. The message says "send to friends" so you must not be able to send to non-friends. Well there's the solution last.fm staff. Close down this ability and give us back the ability of sending to all friends. Quite simple. Again though, I've only received 3 recs from non-friends, so how bad could it be? Maybe they know something we don't. Maybe they're expecting a wave of spam as a result of some future implementation? lol.

  • Maybe Last.fm could also just stop everyone from being able to send to anyone (which seems to have been a hidden possibility anyway). Then there would be no potential spam issue at all and artists could go back to sending recs to only people who want to know about their new music, which is what happened previously in probably 99% of the cases at least, as it was...

    • Criptos said...
    • Subscriber
    • 1 Sep 2008, 07:03

    I'm not an artist, and I also need the recommend for all...

    The first time I signed up to last.fm, I was hooked, no with the music at my fingertips, but to the people, with more or like the same music tastes than me, at my fingertips.

    I quickly signed a few friends, and then, look over my neighbors, and started sending friends request, and receiving friend request... what was the "thing" that make me common with people from Poland, Brazil, Russia evan Japan... was the MUSIC!.

    That was enough, to share the feeling, and then, I started sharing... sharing the music I heard, and I liked, and how I felt about this music, and asked for recommendations, I started to build a musica-likeness-friends-nework.. and we shared, sometimes was like a delirious shout to everyone in joy and fun like "Hey! hear this! this have just blow my mind"... and other times, was like a whisper in a room... like saying "I feel bad, music is my only friend, come, hear this with me in a gloomy room"...

    last.fm was alive... and breathing... Giving daily surprises... now...
    last.fm is like a billboard, with fancy lights going around, and around, but not showing nothing intersting... it was silenced when the recommend to all was removed...

    Now, from being an important part of my life... a way to explore the word and meet people... last.fm have just become a furniture in my laptop... a "link" to visit daily, like a webcomic... something with the "daily static"...

    last.fm is drowned by the silence of the people I have meet since the first day I get in... I no longer know hat my friends are listening lately, no longer have neighbors coming and going.. no life is at last.fm...

    I miss the recommend for all... I miss to know what my friends are reading, and writting, I miss a lot of things... but the thing I miss the most, the ability to share big time.

    Demonología del punto mosca
    • kb7clx said...
    • User
    • 1 Sep 2008, 14:50
    Pixieguts said:
    Maybe Last.fm could also just stop everyone from being able to send to anyone (which seems to have been a hidden possibility anyway). Then there would be no potential spam issue at all and artists could go back to sending recs to only people who want to know about their new music, which is what happened previously in probably 99% of the cases at least, as it was...

    Exactly what I said.
    BTW gamoneterik confirmed that he received my recommendation.
    Yeah I'd say they threw the baby out with the bath water when neither was particularly dirty to begin with lol.

    • tergan said...
    • Subscriber
    • 1 Sep 2008, 23:58
    now the message all group members function is broken! and that one was working for a while there even. grumble.

    • Babs_05 said...
    • Forum Moderator
    • 2 Sep 2008, 00:02
    God forbid people socialise in a social network site...

    • chiron1 said...
    • User
    • 4 Sep 2008, 16:04
    Yeah. I try to let everyone know when I upload a new song but Last.FM tells me I've exceeded my limit when I try to send the track to more than 11 people :( Has anybody tried sending a mssg to all friends? You should be able to do this via your Inbox/Compose Message. Press the down arrow and a list of all your friends pops up. It's 2am now and I should be heading to bed so I'll give it a go tomorrow.

    • irotas said...
    • User
    • 4 Sep 2008, 18:24
    There's a similar thread about this here:
    http://www.last.fm/forum/21713/_/452999

    If you scroll down about the 7th post or so you'll see a list of reasons why I believe Last.fm's new stance on recommendations is unreasonable. Please show your support if you agree.

    Why not? It's zeitgeist, baby!
  • chiron1 said:
    Yeah. I try to let everyone know when I upload a new song but Last.FM tells me I've exceeded my limit when I try to send the track to more than 11 people :( Has anybody tried sending a mssg to all friends? You should be able to do this via your Inbox/Compose Message. Press the down arrow and a list of all your friends pops up. It's 2am now and I should be heading to bed so I'll give it a go tomorrow.
    Tried this today - you can only send to 11 people and now group leaders can't even message their members so no more newsletters from groups either.

    Great way to kill off independent artist communities at the site by steadily blocking all effective means of communication between us!

  • At the beginning, we felt we were together. Now, we just feel alone in the crowd. Shame.

  • Well, a couple of positive turnarounds lately it seems.

    Firstly, group leaders are able to message all their members again.

    Secondly, I was able to get a recommendation of a new track through to all my friends today!

    Thank you Last.fm!!! :D

  • yay

    My music: The Peach Tree
    My label: Tribal Dancing Kid
    My reviewing blog: Gus Reviews
    My demeanour: \m/o_0\m/
  • Now give us back the group recommendations. I am still waiting the moment when they implement the "new incarnation" of group recs.

    I have this group Belgian Electronics. It's sole purpose is to promote Belgian Electronic Music to the Big Crowd. To give a Big Push in the back for the artists. And the best mean was through Group recommendations. They took it away. I can see now that only a vaste group of people actually come by to look at the featured artists. That's great but the purpose was to recommend it to people that don't know it yet and might be interested. I loved my recommendation radio. Because I just could play it whenever I wanted and skip the bad things and discover the new. Including the last.fm recs which was fine by me.

    Also for my own projects : Distant Fires Burning, The Mental Attack and R.B.I.F.E.

    When I look at the stats now I see they dropped like hell since July 2008. Changes came very quickly. Some issues were solved very quick. Only this issue seems to linger now for 4 to five months. It seems to me there isn't going to be a new incarnation of group recs. The only bands or artists they wanna recommend are the groups that pay a contribution to last. fm

    According to me the independant days of last.fm are over.

  • Hi all,

    First up I apologise that this thread has not been replied to since August, and can only blame a lack of proper communication system on our behalf. I'll endeavour to find out where we stand on this issue in order to give everyone a fuller update.

    Thanks,
    Helen

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