Twones is a multi-service music tracker.

July 30, 2008 10:19 AM

Twones is a music tracker that monitors Last.FM, YouTube, MySpace, iTunes, Muxtape, and a few other services.

It's officially in private beta, but limited signups seem to have opened today (no guarantees as to how long that link will continue to work). It currently only works in Firefox 2.0 and up, as an add-on.

posted by goodnewsfortheinsane (10 comments total)

I can't wait to check this out. The recent makeover on Last.FM left me with a bad taste, so I was hoping someone would come out with something similar.
posted by Dr-Baa at 10:22 AM on July 30, 2008

The previous UI for last.fm was great. Perfect, even. It did exactly what I wanted it to do, and the addition of full tracks was making it into something that went even beyond what I thought it could be. Honestly, if they'd gotten the whole digital rights thing sorted out, I would have considered subscribing to a service that let me stream my music anywhere.

Now? It's a steaming pile of web 2.1 shit. Nothing works. I can't find the information I'm used to looking for (top weekly artists, trends, new listens of people whose taste I admire, etc). It doesn't interface with facebook properly and I'm just waiting for my blog widget to break. I wouldn't give those corporate shills a plug nickel and I'm waiting, with bated breath, for a service to come along that will do for me what last.fm used to do.

Is there anyone who doubts that a bestselling book will be written in 2010 about how corporate acquisition and the tinkering of bureaucrats destroyed everything good and right about web-based social networking?
posted by felix betachat at 10:51 AM on July 30, 2008 [1 favorite has favorites]

fb and dr-baa, I don't get the Last.fm hate, or at least not for the redesign. It was a *redesign.* None of the functionality changed, as far as I can tell. All of the things you mention, fb, I can find easily. In fact, it's easier to see daily, weekly, etc. charts for users from their main profile page now. What features were lost?

Anyway, performance on the site has always sucked, but it hasn't gotten any worse since the redesign. I've never quite been sold on the Last.fm model of tracking the songs I listen to (why?), but I still use Last.fm for now.

I wouldn't give those corporate shills a plug nickel

How much did/would you pay for a decent Web 2.0 music service? I wouldn't pay anything. I'm providing valuable marketing info.

As for Twones ... I tried to sign up, and the site said "trust us, we will mail you soon and take care of you" but that was 2 hours ago. I suppose "soon" is relative ...

gnfthi, how long did it take you to get an account? I would think that this post should probably wait until there's a proper public beta that's available to everyone ... otherwise, there's no there there. It could be a basic spam harvester.
posted by mrgrimm at 12:20 PM on July 30, 2008

I was just discussing this same idea with a friend last night.

We were talking about Digg, which is currently sweeping her office as the new hotness. It swept my office, too, but that was back in 2006, and I've always thought it was common knowledge that Digg lost its usefulness once it opened itself up to general news stories and LOLcatz, generally going after the biggest advertising dollar.

So if something like Digg or Flickr or Last.FM goes after the mainstream at the expense of its core audience of tastemakers, aren't they doomed to lose the mainstream once the tastemakers achieve critical mass somewhere else?

(I realize I sound like self-important web hipster (webster?), so as disclaimer, I don't see any inherent value in tastemaking over the mainstream.)
posted by sportbucket at 12:39 PM on July 30, 2008

mrgrimm, I know some people love the new Last.fm, but I'm just not feeling it. It's too Facebook-come-lately for me.

Plus my awesome Happiness of the Katakuris gif is now broken.
posted by Dr-Baa at 12:40 PM on July 30, 2008

I get that it's pronounced "Tunes", but I totally want to read it as Twone-s.
posted by thatbrunette at 12:51 PM on July 30, 2008

I thought the conventional wisdom was to wait for version Threens of any new software to come out before committing to it?
posted by Greg_Ace at 1:09 PM on July 30, 2008

I get that it's pronounced "Tunes", but I totally want to read it as Twone-s.

Somehow I missed the "tunes" pronunciation.
Kind of like the Oneders.
posted by mesh gear fox at 1:37 PM on July 30, 2008 [1 favorite has favorites]

Yes, I like twones with an audible "w" much better ... still waiting for that invite, though. I was just thinking that I'd like to scrobble YT music videos recently.
posted by mrgrimm at 8:00 AM on July 31, 2008

A little bird tells me about a secret URL where you click through to "Join" and you are magically invited. Again, no time guarantees.
posted by goodnewsfortheinsane at 12:10 PM on July 31, 2008