18 December 2008

Vodafone to Offer Last.fm
For Selected Nokia S60 Devices

Vodafone and music service, Last.fm have announced a collaboration which will bring Last.fm’s social networking music features via their mobiles.­

The new mobile application includes Last.fm’s scrobbling functionality that tracks what users listen to in real-time and builds them an online music profile based on their listening habits.

Customers who are new to Last.fm can register from their mobile and check out what their friends are listening to. In addition, customers in Germany will be able to click through directly to the Vodafone Music Store to sample and buy any music recommended by Last.fm.

Last.fm is UK-based internet radio and music community website, founded in 2002 and it is the now world's largest social music platform as they claims. Using a music recommendation system known as "Audioscrobbler", Last.fm builds a detailed profile of each user's musical taste by recording details of all the songs the user listens to, either on the streamed radio stations or on the user's computer or portable music device.

This information is transferred to Last.fm's database ("scrobbled") via a plugin installed into the user's music player. The profile data is displayed on a personal web page. The site offers numerous social networking features and can recommend and play artists similar to the user's favourites.

Javier Foncillas, Head of Branded Content at Vodafone Group, says: “Music continues to be a major passion for our customers and that’s why Vodafone consistently delivers a superior music experience in a number of different ways to ensure people get the music they want, how and when they want it. With Last.fm, Vodafone continues to pioneer social networking on mobiles, delivering a new, relevant and unique music experience, to millions of customers, across our high speed, reliable network.”

The Last.fm application is first available to download from Last.fm to selected Nokia handsets including the N95, N96, N78 and 6210. All of the handsets are available from Vodafone stores, online and via indirect channels. Other handset models will follow soon.

Local language versions of the application will be available in some markets including Germany, Spain and the UK from launch. English versions will be available in all other Vodafone markets.