Monday, July 23, 2007

Scrobbling Pandora Songs to Last.fm!

UPDATE: I just found OpenPandora, which is like a PandoraJam for Windows (i.e., it is a desktop Pandora application that scrobbles to Last.fm). So, our list of cool Pandora+Last.fm apps and mashups is now...
  • PandoraJam - OS X Desktop application that plays Pandora and scrobbles to Last.fm. It also includes lots of other cool features, like recording Pandora streams to a format that can be used by iTunes and the iPod.

  • OpenPandora - Windows Desktop application that plays Pandora and scrobbles to Last.fm. It also includes other cool features, like integration with the Wiimote and some software applications.

  • PandoraFM - Web mashup that combines Pandora and Last.fm. This mashup does more than just scrobble to Last.fm; it really combines nearly everything of Pandora with nearly everything of Last.fm. For example, you can access tags and music information from Last.fm.
I'm not sure which is my "favorite." I'm just happy that these are available. I have a feeling there are more too.

I love Pandora. I also love Last.fm. I feel bad when I listen to Pandora because my songs don't get scrobbled to Last.fm. It's like all of that good listening time is just being wasted. However, I feel like I get exposed to more NEW music through Pandora because I primarily use Last.fm to listen to my own station.

Today, I accidentally found PandoraJam, which solves this problem! It is a desktop application (like PandoraBoy) that streams from Pandora and, at the end of each Pandora song, scrobbles to Last.fm! This gives me the best of both worlds! It has other features too. For example, you can record Pandora audio so you can take it with you later on your iPod. However, the scrobbling feature (which is the only entirely free feature) is the one that really impresses me.

However, this isn't a perfect solution. For one, it doesn't help me when I'm on a Windows machine. Second, it doesn't let me do cool Last.fm things like "Love" tracks. So, I went searching, and I found PandoraFM. This is a WEB mashup that combines Last.fm and Pandora. In fact, it even scrobbles at half the length of the song after a configurable number of seconds (default is 90), which is more like what you'd expect. So it's great! Solves all my problems.

So, if you use both Last.fm and Pandora, you need to check out PandoraFM.

8 comments:

Momofunk said...

Stumbled across this post when searching for Pandora/Last.fm solutions - thank you!!! Tried out PandoraJam, but I can't say I'm all that happy with their business model of charging me for software that will steal music from Pandora, not to mention that scrobbling was pretty hit and miss through them.

Pandorafm, though, is awesome! I've been using the Last.fm radio for a while just to get scrobbling capability, but I've missed Pandora. Thanks again for showing me the light! :)

Robyn said...

Awesome, Thanks for posting about this!

Anonymous said...

was looking for a solution between pandora and last.fm :) thanks a bunch!!!

Tessa said...

Excellent! I Googled "Scrobbling from Pandora to last.fm," not expecting to find much, and this was absolutely perfect! Thank you so much. Do you mind if I post a link to this entry on my blog?

Ted Pavlic said...

Of course -- feel free to post on your blog. :)

julian. said...

Faaabulous.

Lotus (Sarcastic Mom) said...

There's also a great Chrome extension that I just started using called Pandora Enhancer that will scrobble to your last.fm and enables you to "love" the track on last.fm when you "thumb up" the track on Pandora. Also does some other great stuff. Thought I'd mention it. :)

Ted Pavlic said...

Thanks Lotus! That's a good tip. I had been using some other Chrome extension (maybe Like.fm, which is meant to scrobble to Like.fm but happens to also scrobble to Last.fm) for that. I hadn't heard of Pandora Enhancer -- that is much more like what I was looking for when I found Like.fm.