Jim England Inc.

My thoughts on the Last.fm Redesign

Last.fm has finally unveiled their new look today, and explains the changes in their latest blog post. I’ve been a user of Last.fm for years now, and it is my favorite Web 2.0 music site followed by Pandora. There are a lot of changes to the new Last.fm, as I will detail below.

Without being logged in, Last.fm gives us a pretty unappealing introduction page:

The idea here isn’t bad, and I like how it demonstrates the different parts to Last.fm and how many people are doing them. It just has a very disjointed design and doesn’t showcase the users and social networking aspects of the site well enough. The home page could also confuse new users to the site. What exactly is Last.fm? How do I use its features?

When you actually log into Last.fm, however, my opinion completely changes.

Boom! Everything you would ever want to do is included right there on the page, and Last.fm displays any messages, friend requests, and recommendations you have received. The only thing I would change would be to make it easier to get to your public profile; the link seems to get lost a bit on the right sidebar. Overall, though, a solid job.

Now then, how about that profile? The new profile looks great, with a lot of small graphical touches that really bring the page together. Check out my full profile to see the overall look. My favorite addition is the “User’s Library” section that shows the top eight artists alongside their image. Very classy.

And yes, I know, I do have great taste in music, thanks for noticing.

Besides a visual overhaul, the Last.fm team also added some new features to their system that improves the functionality of archiving songs you’ve listened to (scrobbling). To begin with, all scrobbled songs are instantly updated on your profile; no more waiting until Sunday night to see your top artists for the week. Additionally, a feature has been included that lets you add songs into a personal library and listen to them at any time. iPod syncing, instant recommendations, and a soon-to-be-added recent activity list round out the new features.

Overall, I would say that the Last.fm redesign is a success. I just wish that they had included more ways to find new friends and interact with other users on the site, and they really need to fix up that home page. But as far as Web 2.0 music sites go, Last.fm is still my favorite.

MLB Gametime Weather Forecast

As an entry into the Weatherbug API Contest, I have built a MLB Gametime Weather Forecast web page and widget. This small app displays the game information and start time weather forecast for all MLB games.

I have also submitted a modified version on Widgetbox which includes a small widget for all the MLB teams, not just the user’s favorite team.

Entering into an API contest is a great exercise, and I would highly recommend it. In fact, I might be entering Presdo’s API contest in the near future.

Google’s Android: Why cell phone companies must embrace their dumb pipe future

Revolutionary changes are coming to the phone market. The cracks started appearing last year with Apple’s iPhone and its ability to provide full web browsing and a UI that doesn’t frustrate the handset owner. The iPhone has started a movement, but Google’s Android platform, as profiled in an excellent article by Wired, is going to completely change the industry.

Android works not by creating a singular “iPhone killer”, but by allowing the market to have access to an excellent open-source OS that will run on all kinds of cell phones. Companies can then write programs to take advantage of the unique features of an internet-connected smart phone, such as GPS social-networking app Commandro.

Android cuts into the current walled garden cell phone model, where the wireless companies try to keep you locked in based on their own unique features. They limit what applications can run on their networks, and force customers into buying crappy two minute videos and ringtones on their network’s proprietary systems.

The cell phone companies will have to change this model, though, because customers are beginning to get fed up. Expensive plans, obnoxious customer service, and cumbersome features plague the cell phone market. The industry has one of the lowest customer satisfaction rates and is one of the most complained-about industries according to the Better Business Bureau.

Customers want to be able to read web pages, check email, watch video clips, and listen to music, but they don’t want to have to go through Verizon’s or AT&T’s watered-down access points. Sure, they will put up with these inferior versions for a while as a means to an end, but once an open-access alternative is available, the customers will flock towards it. The smaller wireless providers, such as T-Mobile and Sprint, are already moving in this direction. Verizon and AT&T need to see the benefits to Android before it is too late.

If the cell phone market should be opened up as I am suggesting, how should the wireless companies compete? By what they advertise: their networks. This is referred to as dumb pipe, where the operator’s network does not add value beyond bandwidth and network speed. However, I believe that this is an opportunity, for a wireless provider could worry about the two most important features to the customer - wireless network and physical handset - and let the market worry about the rest.

There is plenty room for differentiation in terms of creating a great cell phone design and coupling it with greater access reliability. And even with Android, the companies could still design their own applications for downloading content. These apps would even improve, because they would actually have to compete with the open market. In addition, the wireless providers could strike deals with Google to receive percentages of Google’s advertising dollars for allowing Android onto their networks.

Android is poised to shake up the cell phone market in a very positive way for the consumer. We shall see if Verizon or AT&T jump on board before it becomes too late.

MLB Standings: When RSS is not an option

In the past few weeks, my friend Mike started a sports blog about the Cleveland Indians called Tribe Opinion. In it, he writes about the team and speculates on possible trades and moves in the lineup. Cleveland sports fans should definitely read his posts; often times, Mike goes into greater detail than the Plain Dealer writers (see Mike’s post on Andy Marte for proof).

For his blog, Mike wanted to have a widget that displayed the standings of the Cleveland Indians as well as their opponents in the Central Division. Naturally, I assumed that this information would be readily available on MLB.com as an RSS feed that I could then quickly integrate into a widget. After a thorough search, however, I found that an RSS feed would be unavailable. This wasn’t that surprising considering the fact that Major League Baseball thinks that they own its player’s statistics and are very strict about their information.

In order to get the standings, I used Snoopy to grab a daily copy of ESPN.com’s MLB standings page, scrape out the information I wanted, place the information into a JavaScript file, and embed the widget onto BlogSpot. You can see the results on Tribe Opinion as well as on the right sidebar of my blog.