Pandora vs Last.fm

[Sensai]

Pandora - www.pandora.com

With Pandora you can explore this vast trove of music to your heart's content. Just drop the name of one of your favorite songs or artists into Pandora and let the Genome Project go. It will quickly scan its entire world of analyzed music, almost a century of popular recordings - new and old, well known and completely obscure - to find songs with interesting musical similarities to your choice. Then sit back and enjoy as it creates a listening experience full of current and soon-to-be favorite songs for you.

Last.fm - www.last.fm

You can use Last.fm to listen to music, find out about artists you may like, other people with similar music taste, gigs in your local area, charts and quilts for your personal site, as well as much more.

[Note: Last.fm also keeps a tally of everything you play and organizes it into lists and charts for you.]

The two don't really conflict and both can be used without having problems...for example, everything I play on Pandora I have scrobbled on Last.fm using a Firefox extension, thus giving me a reason to boot up the Fox (scrobbling is just when Last.fm makes a record that you listened to a song on its site).

So, it's a simple question: Which is better/which do you prefer? And let's hear why you think that!

 

[A Diamond For Disease]

I prefer Last.fm. Because it's a social network and you can look up shows.

 

[User Name]

If I'm too lazy to find a certain song, and all I want is a certain style, Pandora does all of the work for me.

Last.fm may be a social network, but imeem.com does a much better job doing the same thing, I really don't ever use Last.fm.

Overall, Pandora does the best in it's category, so I think it wins this battle.

[First post in one whole year, wow.]

 

[Sensai]

Welcome back, User Name. Glad that this is the thread that made you wanna do that, haha.

What is imeem.com? Care to give us some details?

 

[User Name]

Imeem.com is a media sharing social network, based on sharing a persons play list. You can search for one song (or video/photos), or search for a whole play list (of an album, or best of an artist).

Imeem is generally faster than Last.fm, and it's search has a better feel to it.

Imeem also allows you to embed a whole play list into your myspace/blog/webpage, and you can listen to the music even if it isn't on your computer.

It also has quick links to buy the song or album on iTunes, Amazon.com, or eBay.

Or, you could just ignore what I've written above and click here!

 

[Peeze]

I use pandora. But thats because i've never been on last.fm. Pandora introduced me to alot of new music that i like.

 

[Sensai]

Jeah, Peeze, I think I agree with you; Pandora has always helped me discover new music much quicker than Last.fm...and I'm not sure why.

Kinda off topic: What do you guys think of the new Last.fm layout? I think it's pretty...terrible, frankly.

 

[Qzzy]

I tried last fm... and i just didn't like it. Seems like ppl mostly use it to link their play lists on other sites. The way it matches music is weird too. Similar bands are usually way off (at least to me.) I think it just relies on user listening habits and tags or something. Last FM is more of a chore, but i guess it can lead to more smaller bands.

I've actually been introduced to new music that i enjoy with Pandora. Though sometimes it feels like i'm going nowhere with that too. Pandora just needs to increase it's music library even more. It especially needs to find more independent and small bands. One of my favorite bands still isn't in their database, even after i requested it.

 

[Kros]

I use pandora just to get some quick music. Other than that, Last.fm all the way.

 

[Eriatarka]

Does the Pandora radio thing work similarly to the Last radio thing? (if Pandora has a radio thing, that is..)
Yeah I don't like the new Last layout that much but we'll get used to it. It's still a good site.

 

[Sensai]

@ Eriatarka: Pandora IS a radio, there really isn't that much more to it.

@ Ozzy: The way that Last.fm recommends artists is by what other people who like your music like. So, for example, I enjoy the Beatles and Death Cab for Cutie. So, if you're listening to the Beatles (and you really should be :-D) then the next artist that might come up could be Death Cab.

Pandora does it based on some complex equations. It uses science and actual math to determine similarities in songs.

Because of the way that these guys do things, Last.fm is better for more indie bands because if anyone listens to them, it'll immediately show up and get entered into the music flow. Pandora...does not.

Also, I really hate the new Last.fm layout as well. Reminds me a lot of Facebook, which isn't poorly designed at all...it's just more fit for a social network, not a musical place.

(doesn't use Facebook)

 

[Eriatarka]

I kinda like the social environment of Last.. but I understand why someone would prefer to keep their music-discovering seperate to their social-networking That's probably the main deciding point in deciding which one you'd prefer, I'd imagine.. Last has lead me to a nice few cool obscure bands though, along with getting to talk and stalk people and stuff.

I have to say, there's a great thrill to banning songs you don't like from your Last tag-radio stations.
Now Playing; Nickleba.. BAN!

 

[Peeze]

You can ban songs on your pandora stations too.