I’ve just discovered FriendCompare, a web service that allows you to compare your Last.FM music tastes to your friends or compare two completely random users. To start, the service has a clean, and simple design on the homepage. Here, you’d simply enter your Last.FM name to get started. On the next screen, you’re provided with a list of friends and people within your neighborhood to compare yourself too.
Once you’ve selected a friend, you may have to wait a few seconds for FriendCompare to work it’s magic. Here’s a look at a comparison from someone that I know I have a lot in common with:
FriendCompare shows the top tracks from both users and a compatibility meter at the top. I’m currently 33% compatible with Timon50cent based on common artists, albums, and top tags. We don’t have any friends in common nor any of the same recently played tracks. Links for each track, artist, album, and tags are also provided incase you’d like to do some exploring.
If there had been any common tracks that we’ve both played the site would’ve shown how many times you’ve played the track versus how many times your friend has played the track.
Digging Deeper
All in all, the service doesn’t bring anything relatively exciting to the table, but it could be a useful tool when trying to find more music, which is the point of Last.FM. One thing that could make this more useful for me is to display more tracks. My top 10 tracks just aren’t enough to go by for comparisons. I’d like to see more interesting ways that I can compare myself to my friends. For example, what if we’re the only 2 people that have ever played a particular song on Last.FM? I’d like to know that. That’s a great and unique comparison. Or maybe we played a particular song on the same day? Who knows, but I’d love to see FriendCompare dig deeper into the musical styles and matches between my friends and I.