Yesterday my Last.fm user profile passed 8.000 scrobbled songs, and I will continue to scrobble my music. Now where did that word come from? Scrobble? Last.fm is one of the few web services (Flickr is the other one) that I really use. I have never taken part in the Facebook hype, nor do I plan to. This week I also read that the DNB (Den Norske Bank – Norway’s biggest bank) in Second Life had 2-5 visitors a day, my Second Life experience lasted for about 15 minutes. A classical “Been there, done that!” …

I love the idea of sharing the pictures I have taken and data about the music I listen to, and today most of the music I buy, I have gotten recommended through iTMS or Last.fm. Just that I rarely buy my music on iTMS. I guess I am a bit old fashioned and prefer having the CD cover in my hands. So once in a while, you can still see me visiting an old fashioned music shop. Yes, there is still a few of them around!

I don’t read that latest sales charts, I have honestly never cared about them. I see that the music industry in the future will have yet another problem to deal with, not just iTMS, but also the fact that artists don’t need them for marketing. Consumer’s listening profile will replace the expensive marketing. So, even my crappy music taste (profile) has an economic value. The Last.fm profile doesn’t stop with what music you should buy, artists have recently also started to list when and where they have concerts and tons of music video are now available for online viewing. Imagine Last.fm updating their software clients (players) to also play music videos in HD. What impact will that have on for instance MTV? Perhaps none, cause MTV these days rarely play music videos. But imagine a client that only play videos from your favorite artists?

Two major events will change the way I (and perhaps you as well) will be buying our music:

1. With the “Free Music“ announcement Last.fm recently published, I am sure that I will be buying more music based on my Last.fm listening profile. It’s not available in Norway, but I am sure it will be within the next 6 months. Sadly, not many of friends have a Last.fm profile, and the ones that have, mostly have a “horrible taste of music”. Well, their music profile has a low match factor!
2. Apple’s coming software update for Apple TV. Being able to buy your music directly from your home stereo system. Laziness will win. It will be to convenient. With Apple TV, a computer, iPod and a Time Capsule, you will also have the needed backup in place of the digital media that you buy online. That has perhaps been one of my biggest issues with buying music online so far.