Last.fm And Spotify Team Up To Give Better Music Recommendations

In a match that seems made in heaven, Internet radio and recommendation service Last.fm has gone into a partnership with music streaming service Spotify. Together the two companies aim to give listeners the music they want and like, even before they know that they do.

It may seem puzzling at first glance that two seemingly competing music services would join together, but it has happened before. The two also teamed up in the past that saw the inclusion of a Last.fm app in Spotify's portfolio, which ended up being one of Spotify's top 10 apps. In reality, Last.fm and Spotify are actually compatible and complementary services.

Last.fm's reason for being is to give the best music recommendations based on users' preferences and listening habits. While it has been doing that rather successfully even before Spotify started its business, it has not had the larger company's catalog of songs. Due to expensive and laborious processes in getting licenses for an entire artist's repertoire, Last.fm's collection, while many, are not as exhaustive compared to Spotify. One benefit, though, is that Last.fm houses a more diverse collection, including indies that would probably not usually see the light of day in mainstream channels.

Spotify, on the other hand, specializes more in streaming music from its collection of 20 million licensed songs. However, it's biggest dream is to become a music discovery service that helps listeners find music that they might want. And that is definitely a feature that Last.fm has already nailed down. This new partnership, then, tries to combine the best of both worlds in an attempt to give music lovers the best collection and best recommendations in the world.

Last.fm users will soon see a Spotify playbar sitting at the bottom of the site to control songs from Spotify's collection. Those who have the Spotify app installed on their desktop will have the app open up when clicking on a song to play. Those that don't will be redirected to a new tab with the web version of Spotify. Spotify subscribers, both free and premium, can also opt to sync their Last.fm profiles.

VIA: CNET