Good News for Internet Radio

I listen to a LOT of internet radio. At work, I listen to a "Steve Roach" (ambient/drone) station on Pandora, in a feeble attempt to keep my stress levels down. At home, I listen to the "Drone Zone" on Soma FM while paying bills (for the same reason). And Robyn and I have recently started listening to the live stream from AM 1710 out of Antioch Illinois (old timey radio drama) at night as we go to sleep.

For several years now, there's been a struggle between internet radio stations and record labels. The point of contention has been what constitutes reasonable per-song royalty rates that the labels could require for sites providing streaming music. For a while, it looked as if the rates would be so high as to force stations like Pandora and Soma out of business.

According to a recent article in New York Times, though, the record labels and online music services have reached an agreement that will allow sites like Pandora and Some to stay in business, while providing the copyright holders with some compensation for their music.

There seems to be some question as to whether or not this agreement will remain in place; but if it does I think it will turn out to be a good thing for the labels. More and more, streaming music services are replacing commercial radio stations as the place for listeners to discover new music.

I Just Deleted the "Most Recently Played" Sidebar

I've realized that most of the music I listen to is either via iTunes radio (or the Rhythmbox equivalent when I'm booted into Linux) or other streaming sites. These services do not play nicely with Last.FM, or Last.FM hasn't figured out how to collect information from them, I don't know. The point is that unless I'm streaming music from Last.FM or listening to my library on iTunes, Last.FM doesn't have a clue what I'm listening to and the results get all screwy.

For example: according to Last.FM, my current favorite artist is Brian Eno, and the last time I listened to music was on Friday, when I listened to the entirety of the Sigur Rós album "Ágætis Byrjun." Now, I did indeed listen to "Ágætis Byrjun" on Friday (and enjoyed it very much, thank you) but I've since listened to Miles Davis' "Kind of Blue," DJ Shadow's "Preemptive Strike," and a collection of Jonathan Coulton songs on the CD player in my car. I also listened to an hour or two of Classical Music on Magnatune while doing some homework.

As far as I can tell, Last.FM has no way of when I listen to music on anything other than iTunes, iPod, or their site. And there's nothing wrong with that, I guess, if that's how the majority of their users listen to music. I don't, and so my "Recently Played" box has been empty for the past few months. I finally got tired of looking at it and just deleted it.

Enjoy the new sidebar with tons of Amazon.commy action!

Lolz.

I've been meaning to post this comic from the always excellent and nerdy webcomic XKCD. (Seriously, one of the only webcomics I've found with a decent funny : nerdy ratio.)

I have to admit, I feel a bit guilty for enjoying the whole Lolcat / Caturday phenomenon ... but that doesn't stop me from squandering hours of perfectly good internet on sites like I Can Has Cheezburger? and CuteOverload.

Also: lolrus