I love last.fm. Normally it looks like this:
Sometimes, they brand whole pages with big music events like Lollapalooza:
I’m OK with this. It’s very much in the background, I can engage with it if I want, or I can ignore it. It doesn’t take away from my core experience at last.fm - listening to music and checking out new bands.
Recently, when I have ‘loved’ a track, the page has also been taken over by a brand:
I’m not OK with this. This is shouting at me, trying to take over, trying to get my attention. It is taking my attention away from listening and loving music. I just clicked a little heart, I didn’t ask for a huge banner ad to take over my experience. It also isn’t genuine. I don’t trust it. I’m pretty sure that AT&T don’t want me to ’spread the love’ and ‘learn how to tell the world’ by spreading this music all over the internet. Worst of all for last.fm and for myself, I’ve stopped loving tracks to avoid this ad.
This is bad feedback. It’s rude, it’s in my face. It’s like the shouty sports coach yelling encouragement at his team of 10 year old kids.
Good feedback is subtle. It’s encouraging, but in a soft way. Like your grandmother coaxing you to eat more vegetables.
I wish last.fm was more like my Granny.
on Aug 10th, 2009 at 5:51 am
That’s very intrusive alright. Luckily (for me) this seems to happen for users in the US only. I loved a track today and just got a small dialogue at the top of the page, nothing more.
e.g. http://pmck.net/fmlove.png
on Aug 12th, 2009 at 12:43 pm
That used to be my experience too, Peter!
I hope that last.fm are experimenting with different ad formats (and good for them if they are), rather than this being a pointer to what we can expect in the future.