November 4th site update

Hello!

After a couple of larger site releases we've got a quieter one for you today. Almost all of today's release was back-end/internal changes, but here's some details.


• XBox improvements. Last.fm will be coming to your XBox 360 so we've been making sure our systems can handle it and everything will work as it should. Even if you haven't got an XBox this results in a more reliable and slightly faster Last.fm experience for you.

• Web Service improvements. Our web services let people use Last.fm to make their own apps. We've got some new methods and additions to the old ones. You can read all the details in the Web Services forum now.

• Backend switches. There's a couple of internal services that have been retired in this release. You won't notice any difference, but one removes a single point of failure and another frees up our resources to focus on more exciting things.

• Support fixes. We fixed 17 bugs in this release, mostly with our internal & moderator tools. Better mod tools help keep Last.fm a friendly, spam-free place.

• Retirement of widgets & Facebook apps. Widgets and the Facebook apps have been around for a while now, but haven't been well-maintained recently as our focus shifted to building up the Last.fm API platform (and the 3rd party apps/widgets/tools it enables). As of today they won't be available any more. But don't despair! This lets us take care of our image charts, and there's a lot of third-party apps built using our API that are way cooler than our widgets ever were. Check out Build for some examples, and Facebook's application directory too.


That's it for now. We'll be back in 2 weeks with another update.

Meh, the suggestion for user.getShouts wasn't added (to set a filter)... :(

Some pretty major changes implemented on the back-end addressing data integrity. Much, much, much better... and mucho appreciated!

Kudo's Acreature ;)

Now, if only the mods could be more understanding, polite and descriptive, all would be well in the LFM universe.

It would have been nice to have gotten some notice about the retirement of the Facebook widget-- which is still downloadable from your support page. I went to the Build page and the Facebook app page and found nothing that does what I want it to-- just report what I've been playing on my profile. This is really disappointing and makes Last.fm significantly less useful for me.

Tecfan said:
CrybKeeper said:
Kudo's Acreature ;)

Now, if only the mods could be more understanding, polite and descriptive, all would be well in the LFM universe.

imo, the mods are very good, but there are too few of them, and some haven't been logged in for ages

Yes agree, that is the biggest problem. The forums are growing fast, but many mods are missing for months, even over a year :(

Vic_Arpeggio said:
It would have been nice to have gotten some notice about the retirement of the Facebook widget-- which is still downloadable from your support page. I went to the Build page and the Facebook app page and found nothing that does what I want it to-- just report what I've been playing on my profile. This is really disappointing and makes Last.fm significantly less useful for me.

There was tons of notice at Facebook and here in the pinned threads. I admit, it is difficult to stay informed with just forum announcements though.

LFM did try to get the word out, but with 42,000,000 some odd memebers, it is more likely up to us to keep ourselves updated, by reading the fine print.

Babs_05 said:
Thanks for the update news.

... we're at 42million members now?

That is what I read in the corporate news, but having trouble finding the article that boasted that number :(

Wiki still says 30 mil active members(2007): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Last.fm

This pdf file has some data, but not the number of members: http://www.cbsinteractive.com/brand_pdfs/LastLfm_brand-one-sheetl_100209.pdf?tag=brands_list;brand_lastfm

CBS Interactive, a division of CBS Corporation, is the premier online content network for information and entertainment. Its portfolio of leading brands, which include CNET, CBS.com, CBSSports.com, GameSpot, TV.com, BNET and Last.fm, span popular categories like technology, entertainment, sports, news, music and business. With more than 150 million people visiting each month, CBS Interactive is a top 10 web property globally.

The 150 million are visiting:

CBS.com
CHOW
CNET
GameSpot
Last.fm
MaxPreps
Metacritic
mySimon
NCAA.com
TechRepublic
the Insider
TV.com
UrbanBaby
ZDNet

Actually it continued to rise and as of June 2009 unique users peaked at 37.3 million: Here is another LastFM staff blog: http://blog.last.fm/2009/06/10/message-from-the-lastfm-founders-felix-rj-and-martin.

The article I saw, touting 42,000,000 was a corporate news release, sometime last month, that has since been replaced with more current events. That is why I can no longer find it, or link it.

Is there going to be anything similar to a facebook widget in the future? I really loved that feature =((

JustSomeOldJoe said:
There were a number of additional API mods/enhancements as well. Definitely a step in the right direction!

Sounds great, thanks...

CrybKeeper said:

Also, I get e-mailed SEC filings from most corporations I follow, so I know exactly what the company is gaining or losing quarterly. ;)I catch that in Google News. Does make for fascinating reading, totally agree. :)

Tecfan said:
Babs_05 said:
CrybKeeper said:

Also, I get e-mailed SEC filings from most corporations I follow, so I know exactly what the company is gaining or losing quarterly. ;)I catch that in Google News. Does make for fascinating reading, totally agree. :)

ahh, so this is where you find all this Last.fm stuff you stumble :>Yes! Been telling everyone for ages. I love it. I set up email alerts and try to keep up. Google News doesn't capture everything but it's a good start.