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Is iLike a growing threat to Last.fm?

I’ve been writing this blog for about a year now, and I’ve written many times about Last.fm and iLike, and often in the same post. But every since iLike’s Facebook app began its juggernaut climb to the top of the FBapp charts, the number of hits this blog gets from people searching some variant of “iLike vs. Last.fm” has shot up dramatically. Ok, well, dramatically might be overstating since we’re talking relatively small numbers. BUT we weren’t talking any numbers at all a month ago.

What do I take from this? I think iLike is getting more attention and its viability as a Last.fm alternative is being considered by people who weren’t considering it before. Or another interpretation is that the iLike application has made people aware of music-based tracking/networking sites and they’ve heard something about this ‘last.fm’ thing and want to know more.

I’m not sure what the explanation is, but it seems pretty clear that there’s more explicit comparing of the 2 services going on in the last few weeks than there was before.

If you use both — the sites, the FB apps, both, either — tell us how you think the 2 compare in the comments!

This entry was posted on Monday, July 2nd, 2007 at 6:24 AM
and filed under Music, Social Networking Sites.

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Comments (4) to “Is iLike a growing threat to Last.fm?”

  1. Conor Schaefer wrote:

    I’ve been with Last.fm since the late Audioscrobbler era. I love its slick interface that communicates a lot of data in minimal amount of space. By sharp contrast, iLike’s site has a layout similar to MySpace, with oversized modules and tons of wasted space. It seems garish to me in comparison to the professional, “hip” Web 2.0 look of Last.fm/Audioscrobbler. It’s just sloppier.

    Very much like the difference between MySpace and Facebook, imo.

    Posted on 07-Jul-07 at 1:58 pm | Permalink

  2. GZ wrote:

    I stumbled into Audioscrobbler (later LastFM) because of a friend’s recommendation. And it is still my fave app/site of the whole lot. I liked it at first because of the stat keeping aspect which leads to musical discoveries. Later i fell in love with the radio stations all over the site. Made it much easier to listen to my “likes” at work than hauling a 24 CD wallet and constantly rotating the choices contained by it. (By the way, i still use media player centered plug-ins, i hate the newish LastFM app).

    Mog.com i checked out because a year ago or so people started mentioning as competition for LastFM. Because of it remaining a niche for the most part, the blogs are better. But it kinda sucks compared to LastFm. Plus, no radio.

    iLike i got into, again, because of a friend. I have a profile that updates, mainly because the app is nonintrusive when i use my media player of choice – on the other hand i disabled for iTunes. On the rare ocassion i use Jobs’ contraption, this garish thing will appear next to iTunes and i just hated it. IMHO it offers absolutely nothing new to me.

    The one i am looking at with interest is Slacker. Which, if succesful, will combine the best aspects of a portable Mp3 player, sat radio and the recommendation aspects of LastFM.

    One last thing i really don’t like social networks. Don’t care much for pals and stuff (of the online kind). I must admit though that Facebook apps for LastFM and iLike have driven the user numbers up like mad.

    Take care. Love the blog.

    -G.

    Posted on 27-Jul-07 at 7:33 pm | Permalink

  3. Ted wrote:

    I’ve had most of the other music networking sites for ages now: pandora, iLike, MOG et al. NONE of them offer the social community that last.fm does. iLike is fun (I liked (for the first 2 hours) the music trivia game). But the suggestions and interactivity always seemed to be an ordeal rather than seamless as with last.fm.

    Another issue that is not spoken about widely is that iLike takes up a LOT of system resources when using iTunes. I often have to shut it down because it hampers my computing usage. While that does not go to the merits of the service, the fact that it is not “invisible” leaves something to be desired.

    Someone mentioned that it is more akin to MySpace. I agree. I have a myspace page, but I have done very little with it. Why? I am busy. I have many social outlets on the web and to customize myspace and iLike for that matter just requires far too much updating to me. Last.fm is not perfect, but for years it has been my de facto home page.

    Posted on 21-Aug-07 at 7:36 pm | Permalink

  4. Kathy wrote:

    Hi, I found your website via…guess what?…your Last FM page. (That should tell you where my loyalty lies.)

    I’ve used both Last FM and iLike. Last FM is the one that works best for me and my geriatric computer, plus I like the sense of community. Like someone else mentioned, I use iLike’s for their music trivia game, but not as a social networking site.

    I’ve checked out MOG and Pandora, too, briefly. I made an account at MOG but never downloaded the software, and Pandora is terrible with a dial-up.

    Posted on 22-Aug-07 at 1:16 pm | Permalink