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<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> <html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en" lang="en"> <head> <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8" /> <link rel="alternate" type="application/atom+xml" title="Atom Feed" href="../../../atom/index.html?section=blog" /> <title>Last.fm – the Blog · The Brainz are Back in Town</title> <link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" media="screen" href="http://cdn.last.fm/blog/css/style.4.css" />  </head> <body> <div id="outerWrapper"> <div id="wrapper"> <div id="header"> <h1><a rel="home" href="../../../index.html" title="Back to the homepage">Last.fm – the Blog</a></h1> </div> <div id="main"> <div class="hentry"> <h2 class="entry-title"><a href="the-brainz-are-back-in-town" rel="bookmark">The Brainz are Back in Town</a></h2> <h5 class="subhead"><abbr class="published">Thursday, 24 November 2011</abbr></h5> <h6 class="details"> by <strong class="author hcard"><a class="photo_wrapper" href="http://www.last.fm/user/massdosage/"><img src="http://cdn.last.fm/blog/staff5/massdosage.jpg" class="photo" /></a><a href="http://www.last.fm/user/massdosage" class="fn url">adrian</a></strong> <br />filed under <strong><a href="../../../index.html?c=Announcements">Announcements</a></strong> and <strong><a href="../../../index.html?c=Stuff-Other-People-Made">Stuff Other People Made</a></strong> <br /> <a href="the-brainz-are-back-in-town#comments"><strong>Comments:</strong> 18</a> </h6> <div class="entry-content"> <p>Many moons ago Last.fm set up a collaboration with <a href="http://musicbrainz.org">MusicBrainz</a>, the open-source music metadata database and community. MusicBrainz use special keys known as <a href="http://wiki.musicbrainz.org/MBID">MusicBrainz Identifiers</a> (<span class="caps">MBID</span>s) to uniquely identify artists, labels, songs and many other music-related entities. One of the main ideas behind them is that anyone can use these keys to identify and cross-reference musical entities, even if they come from different sources. </p> <p>For example, an album review site could publish the <span class="caps">MBID</span> for an album being reviewed and someone could take this <span class="caps">MBID</span> and look up the album on MusicBrainz (or some other site supporting <span class="caps">MBID</span> lookups) to find out more information about it.</p> <h2>That was then</h2> <p>The plan at the time was to regularly synchronise <span class="caps">MBID</span>s with the artists, albums and tracks in Last.fm’s catalogue. The <span class="caps">MBID</span>s (or should those be <span class="caps">MBID</span>z?) could then be used to query for these entities using our <a href="http://last.fm/api"><span class="caps">API</span></a>, or to link across different services using the MusicBrainz ids as an external mashup key. Last.fm <span class="caps">API</span> calls also return MusicBrainz ids where applicable (see <a href="http://www.last.fm/api/show?service=267">artist.getInfo</a> for an example). </p> <p>This continued successfully for a while until a few shake ups and changes over here resulted in us temporarily dropping the ball on this one and the regular updates stopped (we did however keep the historical data).</p> <p><img src="../../../images/197.jpg" alt="" /></p> <p class="caption">MusicBrainz members hanging out in Last.fm’s ball pit back in the day (photo by <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/mayhem/">Mayhem</a>). </p> <h2>This is now</h2> <p>The good news is that we reconnected with MusicBrainz while we were visiting San Francisco for this year’s <a href="http://developer.yahoo.com/events/hadoopsummit2011/">Hadoop Summit</a> and are recommitting ourselves to being good citizens of the MusicBrainz community. </p> <p>Our first step is to once again synchronise Last.fm artists, albums and tracks with their relatives over at MusicBrainz using their <a href="http://musicbrainz.org/doc/Live_Data_Feed">Live Data Feed</a> which means we’ll be updating these once an hour. We’ve already started doing this and have more information on the technical details over in our <a href="http://www.last.fm/forum/21716/_/2022989">development discussion forum</a>. </p> <h2>To the future and beyond</h2> <p>Once we are in synch again we will start looking at other ways we can more actively work together with MusicBrainz and also with others like <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/open-platform/blog/linked-data-open-platform">The Guardian</a> and the <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/music/brainz/"><span class="caps">BBC</span></a> who use MusicBrainz Identifiers too. We also hope to leverage MusicBrainz’s experience with handling artist and album disambiguation to improve how we model music on Last.fm. We currently have the pleasure of hosting one of their developers (<a href="http://ocharles.org.uk/">OCharles</a>) at our London offices a couple of days a week to work on these and other related issues.</p> <p>So, if you have any questions, comments or requests for features please ask them over on the forum, catch you <a href="http://www.last.fm/forum/21716/_/2022989">there</a>.</p> </div> </div> <ul id="pagelinks"> <li id="next"> <a rel="next" href="../30/lastfm-for-spotify" title="Last.fm for Spotify">Next Post<br /><strong>Last.fm for Spotify</strong></a> </li> <li id="previous"> <a rel="prev" href="../08/mo-data-mo-problems" title="Mo Data Mo Problems">Previous Post<br /><strong>Mo Data Mo Problems</strong></a> </li> </ul> <div id="comments"> <h2>Comments</h2> <ol class="hfeed"><li id="c015297"class="hentry"> <h6 class="details"> <strong class="author vcard"><span class="fn"><a href="http://support@jevon.org" rel="nofollow">Jevon</a></span></strong> <br /> <span class="date"><a href="the-brainz-are-back-in-town#c015297" title="Permalink for this comment"><abbr class="published updated" title="2011-11-24T11:55:08+01:00">24 November, 11:55</abbr></a></span> </h6> <div class="entry-content"> <p>:D Yay! <3 Musicbrainz.</p> </div> <a href="the-brainz-are-back-in-town#c20111124115508" class="entry-title" rel="bookmark">Jevon – 24 November, 11:55</a> </li> <li id="c015298"class="hentry"> <h6 class="details"> <strong class="author vcard"><span class="fn"><a href="http://www.last.fm/user/Tecfan" rel="nofollow">Tecfan</a></span></strong> <br /> <span class="date"><a href="the-brainz-are-back-in-town#c015298" title="Permalink for this comment"><abbr class="published updated" title="2011-11-24T12:22:45+01:00">24 November, 12:22</abbr></a></span> </h6> <div class="entry-content"> <p>:D Yay! <3 Musicbrainz</p> </div> <a href="the-brainz-are-back-in-town#c20111124122245" class="entry-title" rel="bookmark">Tecfan – 24 November, 12:22</a> </li> <li id="c015299"class="hentry"> <h6 class="details"> <strong class="author vcard"><span class="fn"><a href="http://tomahawk-player.org" rel="nofollow">muesli</a></span></strong> <br /> <span class="date"><a href="the-brainz-are-back-in-town#c015299" title="Permalink for this comment"><abbr class="published updated" title="2011-11-24T12:36:19+01:00">24 November, 12:36</abbr></a></span> </h6> <div class="entry-content"> <p>Oh the good old ball pit, you were smelly and potentially life-threatening, yet so much fun :-D</p> </div> <a href="the-brainz-are-back-in-town#c20111124123619" class="entry-title" rel="bookmark">muesli – 24 November, 12:36</a> </li> <li id="c015300"class="hentry"> <h6 class="details"> <strong class="author vcard"><span class="fn"><a href="http://www.last.fm/user/fuzy83" rel="nofollow">Stefan</a></span></strong> <br /> <span class="date"><a href="the-brainz-are-back-in-town#c015300" title="Permalink for this comment"><abbr class="published updated" title="2011-11-24T12:52:28+01:00">24 November, 12:52</abbr></a></span> </h6> <div class="entry-content"> <p>:D Yay! <3 Ball Pit</p> </div> <a href="the-brainz-are-back-in-town#c20111124125228" class="entry-title" rel="bookmark">Stefan – 24 November, 12:52</a> </li> <li id="c015301"class="hentry"> <h6 class="details"> <strong class="author vcard"><span class="fn"><a href="http://last.fm/user/zinigor" rel="nofollow">Igor</a></span></strong> <br /> <span class="date"><a href="the-brainz-are-back-in-town#c015301" title="Permalink for this comment"><abbr class="published updated" title="2011-11-24T13:42:13+01:00">24 November, 13:42</abbr></a></span> </h6> <div class="entry-content"> <p>Hurray for Musicbrainz!! I love their service! Now if only everyone would use it to get rid of incorrect tags!</p> </div> <a href="the-brainz-are-back-in-town#c20111124134213" class="entry-title" rel="bookmark">Igor – 24 November, 13:42</a> </li> <li id="c015302"class="hentry"> <h6 class="details"> <strong class="author vcard"><span class="fn"><a href="http://mll2.free.fr" rel="nofollow">mll</a></span></strong> <br /> <span class="date"><a href="the-brainz-are-back-in-town#c015302" title="Permalink for this comment"><abbr class="published updated" title="2011-11-24T14:10:34+01:00">24 November, 14:10</abbr></a></span> </h6> <div class="entry-content"> <p>Brainz in last.fm, at last ! Hope it goes till the end this time.</p> </div> <a href="the-brainz-are-back-in-town#c20111124141034" class="entry-title" rel="bookmark">mll – 24 November, 14:10</a> </li> <li id="c015304"class="hentry"> <h6 class="details"> <strong class="author vcard"><span class="fn">snyde1</span></strong> <br /> <span class="date"><a href="the-brainz-are-back-in-town#c015304" title="Permalink for this comment"><abbr class="published updated" title="2011-11-24T17:38:00+01:00">24 November, 17:38</abbr></a></span> </h6> <div class="entry-content"> <p>I have to say that I am impressed! Thank you.</p> <p>It is good to hear that this will be leveraged for artist disambiguation.</p> </div> <a href="the-brainz-are-back-in-town#c20111124173800" class="entry-title" rel="bookmark">snyde1 – 24 November, 17:38</a> </li> <li id="c015305"class="hentry"> <h6 class="details"> <strong class="author vcard"><span class="fn"><a href="http://mercuryweb.pl" rel="nofollow">Mercuryweb</a></span></strong> <br /> <span class="date"><a href="the-brainz-are-back-in-town#c015305" title="Permalink for this comment"><abbr class="published updated" title="2011-11-24T17:56:37+01:00">24 November, 17:56</abbr></a></span> </h6> <div class="entry-content"> <p>Ball pits are nice :)</p> </div> <a href="the-brainz-are-back-in-town#c20111124175637" class="entry-title" rel="bookmark">Mercuryweb – 24 November, 17:56</a> </li> <li id="c015306"class="hentry"> <h6 class="details"> <strong class="author vcard"><span class="fn"><a href="http://musicbrainz.org/user/liDEL" rel="nofollow">lidel</a></span></strong> <br /> <span class="date"><a href="the-brainz-are-back-in-town#c015306" title="Permalink for this comment"><abbr class="published updated" title="2011-11-24T19:10:57+01:00">24 November, 19:10</abbr></a></span> </h6> <div class="entry-content"> <p>Promoting <a href="http://musicbrainz.org/doc/MusicBrainz_Identifier" rel="nofollow"><span class="caps">MBID</span>s</a> is a great news! :-)</p> </div> <a href="the-brainz-are-back-in-town#c20111124191057" class="entry-title" rel="bookmark">lidel – 24 November, 19:10</a> </li> <li id="c015307"class="hentry"> <h6 class="details"> <strong class="author vcard"><span class="fn"><a href="http://blah" rel="nofollow">CatCat</a></span></strong> <br /> <span class="date"><a href="the-brainz-are-back-in-town#c015307" title="Permalink for this comment"><abbr class="published updated" title="2011-11-24T22:39:43+01:00">24 November, 22:39</abbr></a></span> </h6> <div class="entry-content"> <p>:D Yay! <3 Musicbrainz.</p> </div> <a href="the-brainz-are-back-in-town#c20111124223943" class="entry-title" rel="bookmark">CatCat – 24 November, 22:39</a> </li> <li id="c015309"class="hentry"> <h6 class="details"> <strong class="author vcard"><span class="fn">DilatedTime</span></strong> <br /> <span class="date"><a href="the-brainz-are-back-in-town#c015309" title="Permalink for this comment"><abbr class="published updated" title="2011-11-25T18:34:12+01:00">25 November, 18:34</abbr></a></span> </h6> <div class="entry-content"> <p>Finally. Took your sweet time about it. But on a lighter note: “Yay! :D”</p> </div> <a href="the-brainz-are-back-in-town#c20111125183412" class="entry-title" rel="bookmark">DilatedTime – 25 November, 18:34</a> </li> <li id="c015310"class="hentry"> <h6 class="details"> <strong class="author vcard"><span class="fn"><a href="http://www.last.fm/user/artificialI" rel="nofollow">MXMLLN</a></span></strong> <br /> <span class="date"><a href="the-brainz-are-back-in-town#c015310" title="Permalink for this comment"><abbr class="published updated" title="2011-11-26T00:13:05+01:00">26 November, 00:13</abbr></a></span> </h6> <div class="entry-content"> <p>Just created a MusicBrainz account, hopefully it makes me smarter: http://musicbrainz.org/user/MXMLLN</p> </div> <a href="the-brainz-are-back-in-town#c20111126001305" class="entry-title" rel="bookmark">MXMLLN – 26 November, 00:13</a> </li> <li id="c015312"class="hentry"> <h6 class="details"> <strong class="author vcard"><span class="fn"><a href="http://the-blend.net" rel="nofollow">nickl</a></span></strong> <br /> <span class="date"><a href="the-brainz-are-back-in-town#c015312" title="Permalink for this comment"><abbr class="published updated" title="2011-11-30T12:06:31+01:00">30 November, 12:06</abbr></a></span> </h6> <div class="entry-content"> <p>hooray for artist disambiguation… hope it makes it into the <span class="caps">API</span> too!</p> </div> <a href="the-brainz-are-back-in-town#c20111130120631" class="entry-title" rel="bookmark">nickl – 30 November, 12:06</a> </li> <li id="c015331"class="hentry"> <h6 class="details"> <strong class="author vcard"><span class="fn">pabouk</span></strong> <br /> <span class="date"><a href="the-brainz-are-back-in-town#c015331" title="Permalink for this comment"><abbr class="published updated" title="2011-12-03T09:24:58+01:00"> 3 December, 09:24</abbr></a></span> </h6> <div class="entry-content"> <p>Great news!</p> <p>@MXMLLN: Yes, I think after some contributing it will make you smarter :)</p> </div> <a href="the-brainz-are-back-in-town#c20111203092458" class="entry-title" rel="bookmark">pabouk – 3 December, 09:24</a> </li> <li id="c015335"class="hentry"> <h6 class="details"> <strong class="author vcard"><span class="fn">Chris</span></strong> <br /> <span class="date"><a href="the-brainz-are-back-in-town#c015335" title="Permalink for this comment"><abbr class="published updated" title="2011-12-04T05:32:02+01:00"> 4 December, 05:32</abbr></a></span> </h6> <div class="entry-content"> <p>Does this mean that last.fm will finally have a more complete listing of artist’s releases? I’m shocked at how many albums and eps last.fm has missing from artists’ pages and even more confused by how many releases are duplicated. last.fm would be so much better if you could look at an artist’s album page and be able to see all of their releases and the popularity of each.</p> </div> <a href="the-brainz-are-back-in-town#c20111204053202" class="entry-title" rel="bookmark">Chris – 4 December, 05:32</a> </li> <li id="c015337"class="hentry"> <h6 class="details"> <strong class="author vcard"><span class="fn"><a href="http://www.last.fm/user/massdosage" rel="nofollow">Mass Dosage</a></span></strong> <br /> <span class="date"><a href="the-brainz-are-back-in-town#c015337" title="Permalink for this comment"><abbr class="published updated" title="2011-12-06T11:42:40+01:00"> 6 December, 11:42</abbr></a></span> </h6> <div class="entry-content"> <p>@Chris – for now we rely on album listings sent to us by the labels that provide us content, and the users of our Music Manager. So the gaps come about from those that don’t send us anything. The duplicates come about as lots of the labels send us duplicates themselves. In the future we hope to increase our album listing coverage by sourcing them from MusicBrainz too.</p> </div> <a href="the-brainz-are-back-in-town#c20111206114240" class="entry-title" rel="bookmark">Mass Dosage – 6 December, 11:42</a> </li> <li id="c015341"class="hentry"> <h6 class="details"> <strong class="author vcard"><span class="fn">dankine</span></strong> <br /> <span class="date"><a href="the-brainz-are-back-in-town#c015341" title="Permalink for this comment"><abbr class="published updated" title="2011-12-06T20:34:11+01:00"> 6 December, 20:34</abbr></a></span> </h6> <div class="entry-content"> <p>does the fact they are looking at moving to acoustid’s make much difference to lfm?</p> </div> <a href="the-brainz-are-back-in-town#c20111206203411" class="entry-title" rel="bookmark">dankine – 6 December, 20:34</a> </li> <li id="c015354"class="hentry"> <h6 class="details"> <strong class="author vcard"><span class="fn"><a href="http://xboxgamertag.com/gamertag-generator/" rel="nofollow">Gamertag Generator</a></span></strong> <br /> <span class="date"><a href="the-brainz-are-back-in-town#c015354" title="Permalink for this comment"><abbr class="published updated" title="2011-12-13T17:43:03+01:00">13 December, 17:43</abbr></a></span> </h6> <div class="entry-content"> <p>Never too old for a ball bit! :D</p> </div> <a href="the-brainz-are-back-in-town#c20111213174303" class="entry-title" rel="bookmark">Gamertag Generator – 13 December, 17:43</a> </li> </ol> <p> Comments are closed for this entry. </p> </div> </div> <div id="sidebar"> <h2>Browse by Category:</h2> <ul> <li><a href="../../../category/About-Us/index.html" title="About Us">About Us</a> (35)</li> <li><a href="../../../category/Announcements/index.html" title="Announcements">Announcements</a> (127)</li> <li><a href="../../../category/Code/index.html" title="Code">Code</a> (24)</li> <li><a href="../../../category/Design/index.html" title="Design">Design</a> (6)</li> <li><a href="../../../category/Found-On-Lastfm/index.html" title="Found On Last.fm">Found On Last.fm</a> (11)</li> <li><a href="../../../category/Lunch-Table/index.html" title="Lunch Table">Lunch Table</a> (17)</li> <li><a href="../../../category/Stuff-Other-People-Made/index.html" title="Stuff Other People Made">Stuff Other People Made</a> (21)</li> <li><a href="../../../category/Tips-and-Tricks/index.html" title="Tips and Tricks">Tips and Tricks</a> (13)</li> <li><a href="../../../category/Trends-and-Data/index.html" title="Trends and Data">Trends and Data</a> (17)</li> </ul> <br /> <br /> <a href="../../../atom/index.html" id="feedlink">Subscribe to the newsfeed</a> <br /> <br /> <a href="../../../archive/index.html">Archive</a> <br /> <br /> <a href="../../../devblogs/index.html">Devblogs</a> </div> <div id="footer"> <p>Everything here is copyrighted by <a href="http://www.last.fm/">Last.fm</a> and the author of the respective article. 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