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Comments: 125 +- Technology: The Technology Behind Last.fm on Monday November 30, @01:35AM
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kdawson
on Monday November 30, @01:35AM
from the not-just-scrobbled-together dept.
from the not-just-scrobbled-together dept.
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CNET's Crave has up a detailed interview with Last.fm's Matthew Ogle, the company's head of Web development. Reader CNETNate notes that Last.fm has streamed 275,000 years of audio around the world. From the interview: "We stream all music directly off our servers in London. We have a cluster of streaming nodes including a bunch of powerful machines with solid-state hard drives. We have a process that runs daily which finds the hottest music and pushes those tracks on to the SSDs streamers that sit in front of our regular platter-based streaming machines. That way, if someone is listening to one of our more popular stations, the chances are really good that these songs are coming off our high-speed SSD machines. They're fast because every song is sitting in memory instead of being on a slow, spinning platter." The interview is actually on two pages but pretends it's on three.
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RTFA (Score:5, Informative)
Reader CNETNate notes that Last.fm has streamed 275,000 years of audio around the world
Where did the submitter get that impression? Certainly not from the article. It mentions that they scrobbled 275,000 years of audio. Scrobbling is what Last.fm's client does when it takes a song you are playing from another source and uploads the meta data to them. Clearly that uses much less bandwidth than streaming a song
So now even the submitters aren't reading TFA anymore? I know, I know... its slashdot. /sigh
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Memory instead of platters...? (Score:5, Insightful)
I really hope that was an attempt to dumb it down for the article. It's a pretty poor way of describing the difference between HDDs and SSDs. After all, HDDs are a form of non-volatile memory too. They just happen to have a mechanical aspect.
In fact, the only way in which they could stream music without having it all in memory first is if they were using a microphone and a live band. Sure, it might make for an entertaining data center, but it's not very scalable.
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... or they could have just filled each 1u server with 8-16 GB of ram and run 1-8 memcached daemons on each cheaper than ssd, same result.
MogileFS (Score:2)
Beyond that, our streamers are all running Linux and using MogileFS -- which is an open-source distributed file system, which is a little bit like a software RAID system.
OMG Files a lot of files served with MogileFS.
Memory (Score:3, Insightful)
They're fast because every song is sitting in memory instead of being on a slow, spinning platter."
Aren't the HDDs (the one's with platters) still considered memory?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_memory [wikipedia.org]
Computer memory refers to devices that are used to store data or programs (sequences of instructions) on a temporary or permanent basis for use in an electronic digital computer.
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Hmm, your dumb question masks a more interesting one: aren't SSDs still considered a storage device as far as the OS is concerned?
In which case, doesn't the data from the SSDs still pass through the server's DIMMs before making its way onto the network? Or is there some fancy pipework which avoids this bottleneck?
Hmmm... (Score:2)
From TFA:
We give the labels a breakdown of which artists should be accruing what royalties, so they have fairly good information on what they should be paying who.
Given what we've heard about record labels, who wants to bet that when this "fairly good information" gets to the record label it is printed on nice soft paper, cut into individual sheets and then placed in the lavatories?
Take heed - Last.fm can run servers (Score:4, Insightful)
Of all the so-called "social" sites whose services I use, Last.fm probably has the best uptime and overall availability. I think I've only seen the main Last.fm site down once or twice in over two years, and I've never seen the Scrobbling service go offline. On top of that, they can actually run a database - unlike Facebook, with its oft-inaccurate or missing data, all of my Last.fm profile is always there. Kudos to these guys for sticking to it and figuring out how to manage high loads properly instead of just whining about how inadequate the tools they have to work with are.
--- Mr. DOS
Re:275,000 years? Wow. (Score:5, Funny)
Last.fm is definitely a way to feel awkward with friends. Some of my acquaintances are well-read, well-dressed, well-spoken people, the sort who really seem to have it all together, but then you can never really manage the same level of respect for them after you've seen their Last.fm profile is nothing but Justin Timberlake and Lady Gaga.
Parent
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
They have detailed week-by-week charts going back to 2005. Lady Gaga is in fifth place this week is at 1,923,168 plays by 92,208 listeners.
Muse, The Beatles, Radiohead, and Coldplay precede her, but that's likely due to the fact that Last.fm is based in the UK and the majority of their users from the UK* and that those bands are much much better
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English, you insensitive clod.
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Hardly. 'English', 'Scottish', and even 'Irish' people are all really Welsh; they're just too embarrassed to admit it. Something about the silly place names...
And those poor Welsh souls are really wannabe Cornish!
ah the cornish (Score:2)
in perpetual denial of the true fount of all civilization and culture in the british isles: the isle of man
Re:275,000 years? Wow. (Score:4, Informative)
What do you call someone from the UK? I wanted to say British but that excludes Northern Ireland.
Only if you're a republican; plenty of northern irish identify themselves as "british".
Parent
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
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That's OK, we prefer it that way.
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What do you call someone from the UK? .
a subject
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
They haven't really decided. Rule of thumb, all the U.K. areas except England tend to go by their own name, and England goes by British about 50-50, depending on age, politics, etc. But what do I know? That is just my guess from observing some Wikipedia disputes over this issue.
The "demonym" for the U.K. is "British". That includes Northern Ireland... an awkward situation. Of course, we have "Americans" meaning just the U.S. And back in the olden days, you either called
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Why is that? I didn't realise that ones taste in music could be such a defining characteristic.
Are you also this snobbish about peoples choice of software, clothing, transport?
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It's a generational thing I suspect. Many people of my generation (I'm mid forties) very much define people by their music, especially what they listened to in their youth. The particular sub culture you belonged to as a teen was strongly related to your musical tastes and general mindset. These days, fashion/tribe is still important but the music side less so - you can have kids who dress the same but have
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
>>>This marks them out to the rest of us as being a bit mindless, easily led etc.
I've found that those who listen to "alternative" music have the same flaws, but are merely following a different type of peer pressure (the pressure to listen to non-popular music).
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You're new here?
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It still confuses me why their "psytrance radio" keeps pulling in Britney Spears.
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If they can't appreciate Sonic Youth I don't want to know them.
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>>>Last.fm is definitely a way to feel awkward with friends. Some of my acquaintances are well-read, well-dressed, well-spoken people, the sort who really seem to have it all together, but then you can never really manage the same level of respect for them after you've seen their Last.fm profile is nothing but Justin Timberlake and Lady Gaga.
>>>
That's because (1) a lot of the so-called "better" music that people have recommended to me is actually boring shit, and (2) I'm not looking for bo
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Call me picky but I wouldn't be interested in a woman that liked that sort of music.
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Being familiar with music from hotties like Timberlake and Daughtry makes you popular with the ladies. Saying, "Those guys are crap" is only going to get you dumped
By "ladies" you of course mean: girls under 18, or fat old women who wear Betty Boop/Disney pajamas and form Twilight fan clubs.
Me and my girlfriend spent many a night bonding over Slayer and Mike Patton, which suited me just fine. I'd actually be very frightened if she listened to Justin Timberlake (and whoever "Daughtery" is), since there is s
Re:275,000 years? Wow. (Score:4, Informative)
56,904,147 plays (1,246,583 listeners) [www.last.fm]
Parent
Re:275,000 years? Wow. (Score:4, Funny)
"I'd love to know how much of that was stuff like Britney Spears."
Unfortunately, you'd probably have to measure that metric in Libraries of Congress.
Parent
Re: (Score:2)
Unfortunately, you'd probably have to measure that metric in Libraries of Congress.
I hope that's an SI unit, else you run the risk of offending the metric nazi's ;)
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Last.fm isn't exactly radio the way you describe. You give it a few seeds, [...] and it can play related music.
Yes, but no. You can 'tune' it to anything, hot or obscure as it may be. It'll play something that sounds like your seed, then something that sounds like that, then something that sounds like that, which unfortunately sounds nothing like your original seed.
The upshot is that I do listen to Last.fm, but too frequently I need to skip and block and my few well-used stations don't ever seem to learn. Pandora does this very much better but, again unfortunately, they offer even less international access (without
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But it doesn't do that, "playing something that sounds similar". It groups things according to tastes of its listeners, nothing more, nothing less. It outputs "people who listen to what you specified also like this"
Which, for me, works much better than Pandora approach. The latter is so...sensible, logical...predictable. When its recommendations aren't disliked by me, it gives something which I already know.
Last.fm tends to give quite a bit more of nice, new things which I've never heard before. They rarely
Re:No thanks, last.fm (Score:5, Informative)
Last.fm's definition of "hottest" is what people actually listen to. It's not a handful of artist names handed down from MusicMegaCorpCoLLC to be digested by the uninformed masses ;)
I suggest looking at what Last.fm actually is. It has helped me find new music frequently. It also made me spend lots of money, which is the only real drawback. Anything you play is recorded, and musical compatibility with other members is compared to give suggestions. There might not be samples of everything on their site, but I usually find samples somewhere (Spotify is the weakest, iTunes and eMusic usually has it).
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Last.fm's definition of "hottest" is what people actually listen to. It's not a handful of artist names handed down from MusicMegaCorpCoLLC to be digested by the uninformed masses ;)
The masses' musical tastes are still mostly decided by "MusicMegaCorpCoLLC", even if not directly through Last.fm.
The same general pool of artists is popular on Last.fm as is popular on radio.
Re:No thanks, last.fm (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm not sure if you've really missed the point, or are just trolling (making me an idiot for replying..).
The idea of putting the "most popular" tracks on SSD is to make it more efficient to stream the tracks that are more likely to be requested.
It's optimising the efficient use of their hardware. It doesn't have anything to do with last.fm's suggestions algorithms and does not at all mean last.fm will force these tracks on you.
You're amusingly uninformed considering you're throwing around terms like "sheeple".
Parent
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uninformed = uniformed
Or something.
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You know, they can't just take any music they like and stream it. First it ahs to be put there by owners.
Anyway, "text recommendations" work OK regardless.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
I do use Last.fm, unfortunately they do not have a wide range of artists, at least not of my liked genre.
Every time I start a station with say the "Satriani" artist tag, I get the exact same 20 songs (in random order), before something completely unrelated start playing. I have the same results with "Kamelot", "Stratovarius" and "Dream Theater".
I liked it more when you could specify two or three artists. That would give you a bit of more breadth on the pool of music to listen.
Regarding alternatives, I have
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
I liked it more when you could specify two or three artists. That would give you a bit of more breadth on the pool of music to listen.
But you can:
http://www.last.fm/listen#pane=multiArtistTab [www.last.fm]
I agree, though, at some point it will either expand its scope, loop the playlist, or just stop (saying it ran out of appropriate stuff to stream). Frankly, though, if given a narrow topic (and a finite music library), what else could it do?
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Uh, the only impact being the "hottest new music" has is being served from one of their SSD hosts instead of the normal streaming cluster. This is completely transparent to the user. It doesn't limit what you can listen to or even make it more likely you'll hear "hot new" music from an SSD host. It's caching of the most popular files, plain and simple.
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You know, there was an easy way you could make sure if what you're writing makes sense...
http://www.last.fm/charts [www.last.fm]
The most presented list, Weekly artist and track charts:
1. Muse
2. The Beatles
3. Radiohead
4. Coldplay
5. Lady GaGa
6. The Killers
7. Red Hot Chili Peppers
8. Metallica
9. Michael Jackson
10. Kings of Leon
Heck, even hyped artists and tracks (which simply show the increase in actual listening) seem passable...
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Or just not use the radio service (since that isn't the only service they provide).
Besides, $3 per month? That's peanuts for all you can hear streaming music! Its not as if streaming music over the Internet is exactly a low-bandwidth job.
Re:NOT $3 (Score:2)
So, no, in terms of risk, I'd be paying far m
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But these days people don't use run-of-the-mill insults and actual technical data to argue the issue, they prefer to use insults like "shitkocks", "butfaget" and "cawksokker" and they'd rather accuse each other of having deviant sexualities than argue over unimportant technical details (who cares what technology is best suited for a task when it is obvious that all SSD users are mactalibanfaggets because you can buy macs with SSD drives?). (Yes, I miss the days when usenet was still alive and useable).
/Mika
Re: (Score:2)
I find it quite easy to use last.fm without Spotify.