Hello everyone.
I don't know how many of you use Last.fm or have used it in the past, but I've been a member since late 2007. I have a lot of scrobbles (played tracks) on there. I dropped out of school at 16 and was sittin' around at home for a few years and didn't really have anything better to do, than to listen to my music. I found out about Last.fm in late 2007 and I liked the idea of it being like a social media network for music.
The years passed by and I've been an almost daily user since my registration. The site has done a few minor facelifts over the years, which the site benefited from more rather than was hurt by. However, as some of you might now, Last.fm has done a total remake of their whole website, and let me tell you, it is not for the better!
I don't know if I am alone in thinking this on the Internet, I know my friends think the same as me, but social media sites like Facebook has really played out its games these days. I mean, sure, people still have Facebook accounts, but none are really active on there anymore. Why? Because it's sterile, it's old, it's boring, it's out. Times pass by, and change with it. We've had different social media sites throughout the last 15 years. In Sweden we had all kinds of shit where old dudes hit on teenage girls, then we got MySpace which totally died out, then we got Facebook, which also is dead these days.
Last.fm's new website design feels very uninspired. It has taken a lot of influence from Facebook and the Windows 8 system, and that is just a bad idea. I mean, everybody know the demise of Facebook is at large. It has been a dying social media platform for a few years now. As I said before, people I know still have accounts, but none are active anymore - it's dead, pointless. This fact seems to have passed by the Last.fm staff completely.
This modern and minimalistic style present on the newer Windows systems, and ever-present on Facebook, are already dated as it hits the consumers. It looks cheap, boring and childish. I mean, it's not like Apple which always have had a classy minimalism to their design. This is the children's daycare colorful-styled shit they design everything in.
If we put aside the new website design, Facebook and all that shit for now, and instead focus on the actual website content, well then I've got more complaints. First off, the whole personal touch to the personal profile pages are completely gone. What made Last.fm so good and fun to be a part of was the HTML-customization everybody could have. Now everybody's personal profiles all look the same (and sterile). They totally terminated all point in even being able to visit each others profiles, apart from the scrobbles.
If we can't have a nice profile page, and meet other people who put forth their own styles and favorite bands, well then it takes away all the fun of even trying to start a conversation. The scrobbles are no fun to have either, as you don't have a nice profile to go with it.
On top of it all, they have also destroyed the search engine and band profiles, as well. I mean, just everything about the new Last.fm is destroyed or gone. There no longer any need of having it, it's not pleasant or practical to use it for finding new people or music.
Last.fm made a very poor choice by redesigning their website to this. I have not seen one single user who's happy about the new design. The opposite, in fact. Users rage on them and are all saying "R.I.P." and they they're leaving if the new design sticks around. I cannot say that I personally don't agree with them all.
R.I.P. Last.fm (...?)
