Scrobble an internet radio station?

Internet radio is disabled by default no matter what scrobbler tool you use. Currently the staff doesn't think the included tags on internet radio is trustworthy enough to open the floodgates.

A podcast is in most cases a MP3 that you download and listen at teh moment you decide to listen to it.
The fact that it is a MP3 makes that you have an ID3-tag that can be read and altered.
Radio-streams are (basicly) beyond your control. In order for them to scrobble correct you have to trust the party streaming your stream to have their tags 100% correct. And face it, that is not the case. Add to that that you have no control over these tags, you have the reason why Last.Fm is not opening the gates for radio-streams.

I see no flaws in that desicion ;)

I absolutely agree with nateswart. I would love to have my Internet radio scrobbled. Shouldn't it be up to me, as the user, whether I trust a radio station's tags enough to scrobble it or not?

I never claimed that editing tags was hard. I am rather particular about my tags, and fully understand what ID3 tags are. My point was that as digital music becomes more popular the number of people who don't understand (or care) is going to increase. I think you're actually making my point for me, by pointing out some people either don't care, or don't know how to edit tags since their accounts are filled with track01, track02, etc.

I have to ask again, why is there a double standard though? You claim that it should be up to the database owner not the user, yet you also claim that people are filling up the database with track01, track02 and that this is up to the user? How is that better? You claim there that it is a user choice and that you personally wouldn't want that. I agree - I wouldn't want that either - but I also don't want my supposedly accurate music listening trends being "polluted" with Rocketboom, college lectures. I've got back and checked, and in iScrobbler 1.5.1 there is no option for ignoring a directory or podcasts.

There may be a core miscommunication here where I am just failing to see a consistent logic between "we want to gather clean accurate data, and it's our database" and "it's up to the user to edit tags and if they don't and their account is filled with garbage then that's their issue". Those two ideas are not in harmony with each other. Why would it not be my prerogative if I didn't mind bad radio tags (or noticed that the stations I listened to were 99-100% accurate)? According to your logic stated above, it would be completely ok for me to fill your database with track01, track02, but not tags from radio stations that I noticed were 99% accurate.

Now, the point about not being able to edit improper radio tags makes sense. That portion actually raises the question (or feature request) of being able to remove tracks from my history. What if I forgot to pause the reporting? Or I noticed a problem with a tag after it was already reported? The only option currently is erase my entire data, right (that I've seen)?

Don't get me wrong from the larger picture. I have issues with this small item, but the overall project/idea is pretty cool. I'm hoping it will help me find new artists, share my tastes with friends, etc. I am just hoping for more accurate data, as it sounds is the goal overall.

The problem I have, is that I want to stream music from my home pc to my work pc. That way I dont have to carry around a hard drive all the time - and can access my music from wherever I am. And I think that this is the way of the future :) more and more people will start streaming their music from one source.
Setting up that streaming system is easy, but I obviously would want it to be scrobbled.
And since its my private collection, everything is tagged (nearly obsessively ;)).
I would really appreciate a solution for that.

rstcyr said:
80% of my PC listening is to online stations, which at the moment will not show on "What I'm listening to". Not much of a point for me to use last.fm, then. Why force me to look elsewhere for competing social music sites?

Cheers
Me too. :)

But the internet streaming station I listen to is last.fm so it is scrobbled.
Plus I can make my own radio stations instead of selecting from 40 preconfigured ones.
Including my own top tracks radio (nothing but the best).
And I made a "Greatest Songs" radio that is the best of the best.
Plus I can listen to the radios from other people like we're all DJs.
And I can put my radio link in any UBB, html site where others with last.fm can just click and listen (like above).
And my personal radio grows as I listen to music.
And a special radio plays recommendations based off my playing habits.
And it only costs $3 a month (I'm not sure what XM costs).
Personalized radio is definitely the way to go.

And the staff has mentioned before wanting to bring internet radio and other formats into the fold but like I said before they just don't "think the included tags on internet radio is trustworthy enough to open the floodgates."

The staff said no, that's why.

Maybe a user poll should decide on this? Last.fm is a social network, so let the users decide.

I personally also sometimes listen to internet radio streams and I would like to see these songs included in my last.fm profile. Because only then I get an accurate profile, because I listen to streams which I don't own on MP3's. This makes that some music-genres are not included in my profile for the moment.

Llan said:
I want to use gnump3d to stream music from my desktop PC e.g. to my laptop in the next room. If I do this, I can't scrobble the tracks, which is not understandable.
I'm rehashing previous posts, but the argument "You can't rely on a radio station for correct tags" is useless. You can't rely on user-submitted tagging as well. I often find errors in the tags of ripped CDs. And besides that, I can just retag every song I have and submit it any way I want.

surely you have a lan? just share the music file across the network, play and scrobble. very very simple.

There really really is no point why radio streams with tags should not be submittable.

Apart from the ones given very calmly in this thread which people keep refusing to read and take in.

There really really is no point why radio streams with tags should not be submittable.


Apart from the ones given very calmly in this thread which people keep refusing to read and take in.


I've read them, and they would make sense to me except for the one main hole in logic that last.fm doesn't seem to be "reading and taking in":

If radio tags are unreliable and only pure data is accepted - why allow users to submit tags such as "Track 01"?

What this results in, is last.fm claiming to not implement something users keep asking for in the hopes of keeping data clean. However they simultaneously acknowledge the data they are already getting is not clean, PLUS that it's not an issue to last.fm. This is what was explicitly stated above in reference to users who *already* report bum tags:
I myself wouldn't want that... If only because it screws my recommendations. But that is a choice by that user. Their tags are crap and they choose not to correct them.

This is the perfect example of a double standard. So what we're left with is this:

1) Users who will report bum tags ALREADY do so WITHOUT the radio implementation.

2) Users who CARE about tags and want them reported from radio are given the shaft.

Show me how I'm wrong and I'll probably be happier. My guess is that either last.fm just doesn't want to do this, in which case they should just say so, or there is another reason that is not stated here (or has not been *clearly* stated here).

nateswart said:
If radio tags are unreliable and only pure data is accepted - why allow users to submit tags such as "Track 01"?

they don't. might I suggest you (find and) check the list of blocked submissions. stuff like [untitled] track1 etc are not allowed.

rstcyr said:
"...80% of my PC listening is to online stations, which at the moment will not show on "What I'm listening to". Not much of a point for me to use last.fm, then..."

I listen to a couple streaming radio stations most of the day (Ron Paul Radio and DI.fm) and they never register on my charts. It would be so nice if they did because both encompass my two favorite genres: politics and dance music. I don't understand/agree with the logic of disabling this format of audio.

So in case any of the last.fm head honchos read this, I def. vote in favor of scrobbling streaming internet stations.