The End of the Affair: A Retrospective of My Time With Last.FM
It’s amazing the attachments people can form to inanimate objects. A great book that you read while backpacking through Europe; a teddy bear given by your grandfather; the first LP you bought and played until it was white. Although some may argue that the age of the internet has systematically and swiftly destroyed any sense of traditional human behavior, this could not be more false. It is only the objects we relate to that have changed. Websites are not much more than HTML, CSS, and hex codes arranged to display words and pictures. But frequent visitors and contributors to beloved sites find their heartstrings pulled in a profound way when they realize the hands that feed truly are the ones who are in control. There was little sense of community when Napster went down at the hands of the judicial court, and there was almost a sigh of relief when Facebook slayed the MySpace dragon. And just how wrong were we, the public, when we spat in MySpace’s face and exiled ourselves to Facebook? Nowadays, it seems like most people in the know would give an arm and leg to go back in time before the internet playground turned into what seems like an Orwellian technological prison that constantly stalks our every move.
Social media is a hydra — cut off one head, and several more will grow in its place. The best example of this was controversial music tracker OiNK’s Pink Palace. This torrenting site and forum was so prolific that it had even enticed musicians such as songwriter and producer Trent Reznor to secretly seek residence. But users woke up one morning and saw a little icon of a sobbing pig and a notice that the website was currently under investigation by the authorities. While the owners of the website had a lengthy legal battle ahead of them, the community found themselves plummeting into a series of refugee camps on several IRC (Internet Relay Chat) channels. There was brief solace with the website STMusic, but the owner quickly found himself on the outs with the users, and it was left to rot. Back in the IRC rooms, which are hosted somewhere between the surface and the deep ocean floor of the internet, two more very potent torrenting sites were developed by us OiNK survivors, neither of which has been taken down yet. I will refrain from naming them here. Although the legality of the situation was questionable, it was a remarkable show of community. We were pioneers building up a new frontier for future users. Our end result grew into a metropolis of internet activity. I don’t frequent it much anymore (as I have stopped torrenting music in lieu of purchasing used CDs), but I’m proud to have been a part of it.
It’s something that has stayed with me when chapters in my life come to an end — that the end is always fastened together with a beginning. I left one job and discovered another one; I lose a friend due to geography, but gain another who has just arrived. It’s lovely how relativity works.
The summer of 2015 finds me once again staring down a tunnel, but this time without another light at the other end. A lot is made of this apparent addiction we as Westerns have with the internet, the quest for free wi-fi, and for constant visiting of our favorite haunts. Whether it’s checking new Facebook users or uploading more Instagram selfies, you would be hard pressed to find anybody under the age of 30 who doesn’t have a favorite. For me, that was Last.FM, and it is Last.FM that seems to be peering out over the precipice of obsolescence.
Last.FM is a music aggregator that “scrobbles,” or records data about, any and all music tracks that users listen to on their computers, portable media players, or smartphones. Third-party developers have also made it possible to retroactively scrobble tunes listened to by way of traditional means (phonograph, CD player, boom box, radio, etc). In addition to its tracking and aggregation services, Last.FM initially offered a rich forum community in all major Western and Asian languages, a radio service, and user-curated artist galleries and playlists. The features of Last.FM ran quite deep and seemed limitless.
Problems first arose with Last.FM when CBS Interactive purchased the website in May of 2007, seemingly without a capable administration to steer the ship. The new staff could not appropriately handle the amount of troubleshooting queries and problems in proportion to the staggering user base. In the summer of 2008, Last.FM entirely re-hauled the website, to polarizing opinions. While many features remained intact, many users loudly complained about how unintuitive the new layout was. Time has proven that our pre-conceived ideas of the website likely impacted those rather feisty opinions unjustly.
Although complaints about the website overhaul soon became little more than a dull, harmless roar, that redesign led to an overwhelming number of bugs and problems for the end user. Eventually, the company’s own desktop client, the Last.FM Scrobbler, depreciated and offered little in the way of features — but lots in the way of problems. For example, the software has had severe issues with detecting music being played through iTunes, the Western world’s most popular computer-based audio client. In response, some third-party clients began to build Last.FM support into their apps rather than rely on the end user to have to download and maintain multiple pieces of software. Clementine and Spotify are two examples of this.
With bugs increasing every day, the staff seemed to dwindle until their presence was extremely small. At its peak in 2011, with a staggering amount of users, their presence became near non-existent. By 2015, the forums were overrun with spam threads and spambots that pushed all legitimate posts down to the floor. While Last.FM sat on life support and the expansive community was holding on tightly, other CBS properties began to get a new makeover. The most noticeable was arguably CNET. Much like Last.FM, CNET felt more like a community than just a news resource. The editors and hosts tailored the material to suit the needs of the users. Podcasts, video series, and reviews spoke to the end users and fit them like a glove. Shortly after CBS Interactive purchased CNET, all its shows and pages got a shiny new look — similar to how Last.FM would ultimately look. For a while, it seemed that CNET was on the rise and only getting better. And then, silently and organically, the website was eroded down to a mere stub of what it once represented. Despite the staff’s gallant efforts to archive as much older material as possible, CBS’s latest version of the website would bury it so deep that no user could find it anymore. This, coupled with a mass exodus of classic hosts and editors (Veronica Belmont, Jasmine France, Tom Merritt, Jason Howell, and Molly Wood), spelled demise for CNET’s once spotless reputation.
Is Last.FM suffering the same fate?
It’s more than likely.
The new version of Last.FM was first made available as a preview in the early summer of 2015, with users shown a beta version of the website that was to go live sometime later in the year. This beta, simply a variation of the theme used for CNET, was just as drastic as the 2008 rehaul, and left users wondering if it was truly for the better. Unlike the last makeover, Last.FM’s features seemed to be stunted and clipped to the point where they were entirely unusable (or entirely missing). A quick collective peek into the forums gave way to an overwhelming amount of negative feedback for the new graphic design and layout. Several users who were professional web designers by trade were especially critical of the blank space on each user page, the lack of useful chart information, and the removal of the “About Me” section, which allowed users to further personalize their profiles. Some even offered to fix the layout themselves. Staff did not respond to these criticisms. Months later, the beta version of Last.FM remained virtually untouched, with none of the users’ suggestions or requests incorporated. The new, oversized graphics that many users deemed laughable were still a major element of the layout, as was the odd sense of spacing and text alignment. These cosmetic changes would only be the tip of the iceberg.
In early August 2015, Last.FM placed another banner at the top of the homepage that urged users to try out the “new” beta, (which still remained virtually unchanged from its initial preview). But this time, there was a qualifier that told us the new website would be going live in a few weeks. Users took to the forums, sharing their anger and concern that the staff hadn’t made any progress on the new website — nor had they incorporated any of the user feedback supplied at their own request (via official form). Without warning, the website went live on August 17th, to complete user outrage. Because the website had remained almost wholly unchanged from its initial beta state (aside from some performance tweaks), the launch effectively went ahead unfinished, leaving many users confused and feeling betrayed. The official Last.FM forums were officially discontinued, only to randomly appear on- and offline throughout the day via old links. In the interim, Last.FM set up a forum on Get Satisfaction, a way for online businesses to gain feedback on their products. As of this writing it’s where users have been voicing their concerns, problems, error messages, and, at times, out-and-out verbal abuse directed at both Last.FM staff and CBS Interactive. Of course, it wasn’t long before paid subscribers began publicly posting their cancellation confirmations. The users of Last.FM, a website that once stood tall amongst the social media giants, seem to have finally reached their limit on all the jerking around they can stand.
A brief list of the issues users have faced due to Last.FM’s premature beta takeover are as follows:
Many 3rd-party applications are no longer compatible due to authentication issues.
Shoutboxes, similar to Facebook’s timeline, have been temporarily deactivated.
Users can no longer change or upload album artwork, leaving many albums with an unsightly generic image that represents Last.FM’s inability to aggregate the correct image on its own.
Scrobbles and play counts are currently incorrect. Scrobbles may not appear or cache properly. Any song not in the current Last.FM database is at risk of not appearing.
Many features of Last.FM, such as forums and groups, are missing in action. Even if the groups feature returns, all former groups will have been erased and wiped clean without proper notice.
The user is currently not allowed to personalize his or her profile. It is unknown how much the user will be allowed to personalize it in the future.
The user is currently barred from deleting his or her account.
Many recently deactivated or reset accounts are appearing intact.
Cosmetic problems remain unchanged, and many have criticized the re-design as unfriendly to users with smaller screen resolutions.
Song titles appear before artist titles.
Users can no longer view detailed charts of Top Artists from their user page.
Liking/disliking tracks is currently not possible.
No desired new features have been implemented, such as the ability to change one’s user name, or a proper way to correct misspelled artists and titles.
A full list of issues can be seen here: Last.fm Support Community
These criticisms are simply the beginning, as users of Last.FM Land report of the most egregious of business sins. Last.FM staff have been missing in action again. They have not responded to criticism, nor have they responded to the plethora of questions asked by long-time users. Unlike many social media websites, where user profiles usually last two to three years, Last.FM has a core user base of people with profiles that are as many as twelve years old. Personally, I’ve been a user of Last.FM since 2006, and my current profile was created in 2007. My nine-year stint has had its ups and downs, but the statistics it offers me about my music collection, in addition to its community that truly appreciates music of any genre, have always kept me around. I can look up any given week on Last.FM and have an instant flashback to what I was feeling. It has monitored most of my listening throughout college, my semester abroad, my employment at various jobs, and all of my time with multiple devices from the iPod to the Zune to the Droid Incredible to the Nokia Lumia series to the iPhone. Users like myself and thousands of others have kept this website afloat with ad revenue and user referrals. At the end of the day, we value respect and we value open and honest communication. While this was something the Last.FM staff once offered, it seems that the involvement of CBS Interactive has only stifled this.
I sorrowfully ponder whether or not Last.FM can survive this criticism and the planned mass exodus of users. Netflix was smart enough to wade the water during their PR nightmare of yesteryear. So, will Last.FM be the next Netflix? Or will it be the next MySpace, forgotten and made irrelevant?
Users have lost all faith in the Last.FM staff. And they never had any for CBS in the first place.
Sign the petition: http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/lastfmbeta