last.fm - good review on corante

New Last.fm: Social Architecture Drives Music Experience  (Steve Boyd / Corante).
He says  "  this version of Last.fm is almost a perfect example of what I have been preaching about social architecture:

1. People Are The Living, Breathing, Beating Heart Of The Universe -- the social elements of social applications are central, and the domain elements (in this case music) come second.
   
2. Artifacts Bind Us Together and Define Us -- the social "gestures" that we leave behind in our online searching -- comments, ratings, tags, and so on -- weaves the fabric that binds us together, and through which we make sense of the world.
   
3. Social Interaction Is Bottom Up, And So Is Everything Else -- successful social applications -- like Last.fm -- work because their orientation is bottom-up throughout. People's fuzzy tags, group formation, and music preferences drive the overall experience, not a single, centralized taxonomy and unified top ten hit parade model. (Big aside: exactly what is lacking in all the current top 100 or 500 blog lists, by the way.)
   
4. Social Stuff Absorbs and Trumps Domain Stuff -- it is our collective perceptions of and enjoyment of music that animates the endless catalog of artists, albums, and tracks that form the natural domain model of recorded music. It is through social interaction that we can learn something about a new artist, or new music by an old favorite. We are not on our own, wandering through the stacks: our view of the world of music, in this case, is shaped and informed by others...."

Very interesting stuff. Check out the rest here
Go to Last.fm

Comments

[Stowe Boyd]

Except that it's Stowe, not Steve Boyd. Steven Boyd was they guy that got trampled to death in the chariot race against Ben Hur, Charleton Heston.