At Last: a return visit to Last.fm

More than a year ago I wrote about Last.fm and a new feature I noticed yesterday had prompted this new update. For those of you not familiar with it, Last.fm describes itself as a "social music revolution". The basic idea is that you listen to music, either from a Last.fm "radio" station or from your own CD/mp3 collection, Last.fm will "learn what you like" and tailor what it plays to match your musical tastes. I said the last time that I wasn't sure that it had any educational application... I'm still not convinced that I could justify using it in school. In fact the things that attract me to it may be the things that frighten the powers that be who ban access to social networking tools.

The service has been steadily developing and in particular the social networking side has been growing and improving. I don't make as much use of this as I could, but Last.fm can put you in touch with people who like the same sort of music, it has bulletin boards for fans of particular groups/genres, it has a blog(ish) tool, it has ways of recommending music and linking you to sites where you can buy it... in short it has many ways of encouraging and supporting online social networks. ...And it plays music I like into the bargain!

Clearly, there are similar issues to Bebo and MySpace accounts in that inappropriate material can be posted, inappropriate contacts made and children could reveal more about themselves than is wise. However, I have found it generally good at playing music to my taste and have bought a couple of albums as a result of its recommendations. (Although I am still unsure about the Goo Goo Dolls album I got at its suggestion despite Mr W's best efforts to convert me.)

You can, if the desire so takes you, look at the kind of music I listen to but the new feature than prompted this post was the recommended events list (see screenshot). You tell Last.fm where you live and it lists upcoming concerts it thinks you will like. It even tells you how many other Last.fm users will be attending the same concert - interesting or dangerous depending on your point of view.

However, the main point of interest for me, is that it's further evidence of the way computers and social networking tools are becoming increasingly personalised. I could find out about upcoming events by going to SECC Tickets or Gigs in Scotland but I get a whole load of information I don't care about - for example, do I care about the Sugababes' concert or Peter Pan on Ice? I think not. :-) Last.fm however provides a personalised service and highlights just the stuff I am interested in. Brilliant.

Ewan, among others, has often talked about the value of allowing pupils to personalise their own space. Read/Write web tools are increasingly delivering highly personalised information in ways that are user customisable. Yet, at the same time, there is pressure to have all school systems looking exactly the same. Allow pupils to choose their own desktop picture? - Don't be silly! Let users add desktop widgets? - Not a hope! Have pupils write to their own blog while at school? - Far to dangerous! Allow some people to use a Macintosh? - Perish the thought, after all, "Nobody uses Macintoshes!" Even worse, permit children to bring their own computers into school and connect to the network? Impossible!

There's a reason they are called personal computers. I know there is also a reason why they often are locked down as tightly as possible in schools but this has the side effect of making them identical and impersonal. However, if we want our pupils to make effective use of the technology, do we have to find ways of allowing them to take advantage of the personalised environments that they can access/create?

{Sorry about that - it was a bit of a stealth rant! It wasn't obvious where I was going untill I got there. Am I tilting at windmills or is this a real problem?}

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