So, there I was, minding my own business, when this cheeky little zombie sneaked up from behind and attached itself to my arm. Luckily, this cute little member of the undead had no front teeth, so I escaped with a slight gumming.

In not totally unrelated news, I have been playing around with MOC, using it to submit tracks to Libre.fm. Now, as a long time user of Last.fm, I love the fact that people are attempting to build a free/libre alternative, but I have to say, Libre.fm does currently remind me of my recent experience with the above toothless zombie.

I want to be careful of not being too critical of Libre.fm, after all it is still alpha software, but it seems to have been an age since the service was first announced and I was hoping it might possess some teeth by now. Unfortunately, it does not and I find it to be lacking any features which might make it useful.

Having said that, it is possible to bridge your submitted tracks from Libre.fm to Last.fm, so I guess I am not losing out by playing around with it. Also, I have been looking at the project in some depth and it is good to see the development roadmap is full of exciting plans — I am sure the team will improve the service soon.

I have also cloned the git repository and taken a quick look at the GNU FM code. I am not sure there is much I can contribute myself, but I may have a play at setting up a GNUkebox instance for testing.

One feature I would really like to see would be a ‘similar artists’ recommendation system, such as seen on Last.fm. Personally, I think this is one of Last.fm’s strongest features and I find it to be a fantastic tool for finding new music. In fact, just last night, I used it to find The Slew, who seem to produce a sublime mix of rock and turntablism. Which reminds me, I have some new music to relax with.

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Tagged: lastfm, librefm, moc, zombies