Tag Cloud Gone?

I have just got version 1.3.0.58 and it looks like one of the features of the client that I quite liked has been dropped. In the 'Now Playing' tab it used to display global tags similar to whatever was playing or alternatively whatever you had just searched for, it was handy if you were just on a bit of a musical exploration.

Has this been dropped or am I just being a bit dim?

nb

PS: Apologies if this has been discussed elsewhere, had a quick look and couldn't find it!

As has the artist cloud, unfortunately.

Here's my PM response to this question when rantinghuman asked me about it the other week.

"We chose to remove the tag cloud for two reasons: 1) As multiple artist radio is not something we can provide anymore, it's not nearly as useful to have a tag cloud when only selecting one artist. The tag cloud concept stemmed from a requirement for functionality to be able to select an artist, tag another artist etc. and mix them all together. We unfortunately (due to licensing issues) can't offer this anymore. 2) We have more (and better!) plans for the software soon, so this is a small step in that direction, clearing the space for much more useful tools.

The one cool thing the tag cloud did (in my opinion) was that by searching for an item, you could see related items quickly and easily, and that is cool. We thought that this would help new users 'get into Last.fm' by exposing our data for them a bit and offering suggestions for what to listen to. However, after user testing and putting it out in the wild we've found this was not so. It's a power user feature that new users don't understand; it's far too complicated.

Perhaps you may have heard that it's better to offend power users than new users, if you haven't there's an extremely interesting article on it here: http://www.subtraction.com/archives/2007/0309_offending_ex.php by Khoi Vihn (the art director for the NYtimes.com. I don't mean this as an offence to you (who I assume are a power user) but rather as some insight into what we take into account when developing features. We're currently working towards lowering the barrier for entry for new users to the software. When we've got that nailed you bet we'll be putting loads of much cooler power features in. First things first.

This all beings said I still do like the tag cloud for my reason above, but this is not the right application for it anymore (due to the multiple artist selection thing). I'm looking for a more appropriate place for it to live. It was a good experiment, but ultimately, that is not the place for it and we're pulling it out of the software for now. It may turn up on the site or we may add it into the software later as a more advanced way of searching. Like I said, new much cooler functionality in the works -- this will make a lot more sense to you when you see it :)

So the short answer is no, we won't bring it back in it's previous manifestation, but yes, we would like it to return in a different and more useful application.

I hope that answers your questions and thanks for your personal interest in the issue.