Music web 2.0 tools, Part I - last.fm

I've been somewhat resistant to plugging into music web 2.0 tools -- I have a pretty large library on itunes and I like to shuffle the stuff I have or listen to a particular artist when I'm at the computer. I'm always interested in hearing new artists and exchange that information with friends, but I'm not so interested in what strangers are listening to. Still, I decided this was my opportunity to check out music tools and I clicked on the short list of Web 2.0 2008 Awards under the music category. I checked out last.fm, Pandora and mog.

When you open last.fm, it tells you what thousands of people are listening to and gives you the option to tune into an artist, watch videos, listen to a radio, see charts or music events. I picked my genre and turned on the radio. It was actually kind of interesting, although I didn't end up listening to one entire song because I kept getting side-tracked checking out who was considered similar to artists I like and I found that I kept jumping from artist to artist . My hope was I might discover someone new to me and that I did. Alternatively, you can pull up someone you know and listen to their 10 top tracks. You can listen to some full tracks and some samples. There's opportunity to post reactions to songs, read related journals, join fan groups, etc. but in some ways the page set-up felt way too frenetic for me.