The official reasoning behind that change is that Last.fm users have for some time now used other music services as well to listen to music and that it would be in the best interest of all parties involved if Last.fm would concentrate on their core mission and leave the music streaming to those music providers instead.

The changes are already shown on the sites. Single music tracks like the one shown above now display a preview this track link (to listen to 30 seconds of the track) and links to partner sites which vary heavily depending on the user’s location in the world.

The beta launch partners are Spotify, MOG and The Hype Machine with more – including Vevo and We7, in the pipeline.

Last.fm will concentrate their efforts on music strategy including statistics, scrobbling and their music recommendatino engine as well as community features offered on their websites.

The move itself can be seen as a positive one for users who are not living in the countries that were able to access the on-demand streaming feature. These users actually benefit from the change as they can now access those third party music streaming services, some of which are available for a worldwide audience, directly from within Last.fm.

Users from the US, UK and Germany on the other hand lose the ability to play full-length music tracks directly on the Last.fm website but the partner services ensure that they can still listen to full-length tracks on those partner sites.

These information are then used to search various video services including Youtube, MyVideo, Vimeo or Discogs. The information are then displayed in the main interface that resembles a desktop music player. Results are shown in a song and album list. It is therefor possible to check out a specific album of an artist or band using Semsix.

Semsix displayed quality levels for each song that is listed in the interface. Green dots indicate a good quality while gray dots indicate songs that have not been found by the search engine. A click on an album at the top will only show the songs of that album in the results list. Songs can be added to a playlist which can be saved for later use. All songs that have been found can be played right away on the site. A video of the song will be shown during playback as well.

A site logo on top will indicate the source of the song. Other possibilities offered by Semsix are switching to simple view which will display all songs that have been found in a list, a build in lyrics search engine and web radio capabilities.

All these features make Semsix an interesting option for users who want to listen to songs from specific artists or albums online. No registration is required to use the service.

One grouse that people might have is if they purchased a song or album online only to discover that another store was offering the same track for a lesser price. That’s where the Mp3StoreGuide can be a real boon. The brainchild of the Mp3Tunes creators, the site is basically a way to check online store prices and find out which store if offering the best rate.

Stores are grouped into three categories; those that carry major labels, minor labels, and stores offering subscription services. Each store has information like average price, song bitrate, country of service, whether the store offers free tracks, etc. Mp3StoreGuide offers users the option of searching each site individually or doing a comparison search.

To test the website, I did a search using both popular and indie artists. A search of U2’s ‘New Years Day’ yielded 67 results while a search for ‘Heaven’ by Hail Social threw up 25 results of which some results were of other songs. Not bad, if I might say so.

For buyers of music online, Mp3StoreGuide is a gem. It’s fast, easy to use, and gives results. The bonus is that the site displays only DRM-free song results. Moreover, the source code is freely available to users who might want to modify it to suit their tastes.

What do you think of the Mp3StoreGuide? Do you like it? How do you think the site can be improved? Let me know in the comments.

The internet has made it very easy to get access to music. You can stop by the innumerable music blogs, online radio stations, etc. for your daily fix. Plus, you can transfer music to your mp3 player or hard drive so that you can take your music with you.

The internet has also raised an ugly monster in the form of DRM or digital rights management. Users who want to support the record industry often find themselves having to fork out a hefty sum for songs that are crippled so that you cannot listen to them on more than one device.

That’s why sites like RCRDLBL are a breath of fresh air. The site, whose name is ‘Record Label’ without the vowels offers up a plethora of legal alternatives for music lovers. The best part? Their music is completely free.

RCRD LBL is actually a collection of music blogs and online record labels. It’s been formed to give artists a platform to display their music and allow listeners a money-free audio experience. RCRD LBL encourages people to download music from their site and share them with friends.

All the music on the site is DRM-free so you can transfer it to your iPod, CDs, cell phone etc. Artists are paid by the ad sponsorships on the site so you don’t have to pay anything for songs. While anyone can download songs off the site, only registered users can get music updates, post comments, etc.

RCRD LBL is extremely gracious about sharing music. They have widgets you can use to post tracks from the site onto your own blog or website. RCRD LBL is also available on Twitter and carry regular podcasts. In addition, every artist has their own RSS feed so you can keep track of your favorite artist’s goings on. You can also submit your own music directly to them if you’d like it to be included on the site.

Most of the artists here are emerging talents and those that are signed to small or independent labels. There are also some big names like Moby. I found a lot of artists I’d heard before as well as new ones. Overall, RCRD LBL is a great place to scout for upcoming musicians and basically discover music you might not have heard otherwise.

What do you think of RCRD LBL? Do you enjoy listening to music online? What other legal, DRM-free, music sites do you know of? Let me know in the comments.

Some of you will remember my post a little while back about favorite music players. For most people on Linux, Amarok rules hands down. In fact, Amarok has gained a reputation as ‘the player’ and made a lot of Windows users sit up and take notice, myself included.

The developers at Amarok have been working hard over the months to put forth a new version of the software. The result is Amarok 2.0. The new version is radically different from the previous version and includes a whole new bunch of features.

Amarok doesn’t just have a new look, it also has a new interface. Another new addition is the PopUp Dropper, which lets you add files to a playlist, copy them to an attached device or edit tags, all using simple drag and drop. Apart from that, you can also extract tags from filenames as well as integrate your online music into the player including Last.fm, Jamendo, Magnatunes, etc.

The biggest thing of note is that this version of Amarok is the key to getting this player to work with other OS’ like Windows and Mac. Since only alpha versions are being released presently, you can still only download the source code. However, one developer has already managed to build a test Windows version and it works fine.

I expect to see Windows binaries within a short time and I can’t wait to finally try out this player. Currently, I’m using Winamp 2. What about you? Do you already use Amarok? If not, are you planning on trying it? What do you like best about this player? Let me know in the comments.

The usual method to access Pandora is to use a proxy that is located in the United States so that Pandora believes that you are from there to. A far better solution was posted in the comments of this blog yesterday.

Global Pandora offers the Pandora interface on a independent website that requires no registration. Just enter a song or artist and a radio station will be build and you can listen to it. All without using a proxy, hiding your real IP or registration.

It even offers way to create an account and share music with your friends. All the choices that you have at the original Pandora website as well. I did no try those though and would be cautious to use them. This service is great but it would mean that you would enter your login data, like email, username and password on their site and this is a security risk.