The genesis

If they catch me, the W3C will probably put me in jail⁽¹⁾. And, I know, some pages down here look like internet in the 90s (hey, I know how to use a css sheet!)... I'm definitely not a web designer.

The little story is that, on the 31^st of august 2008 (one week ago while I'm writing these lines), on a Last.fm forum, a user suggested a feature allowing the display of all common artists between two user's libraries.

Apparently this didn't exist, and I figured, "this must not be very difficult, if the data like artists lists are available". And I knew the existence of build.last.fm, APIs, etc... I knew that it was possible for users to make that stuff =)

Flip the script

I was curious so I learned how to do that and made that script. Then I couldn't help thinking about fun ways to use the Last.fm database (and trying tu put some style).

I couldn't do better than Last.fm to display the data, so my idea was to find new ways of combining these data, different from usual charts, with simple php scripts and minimal visual design. Then I came out with a few ideas which I found cool. That's how these scripts started to not-work at first, and then (the miracle of life!) to work:

• Improved common artists
• How old is your music?
• The Last.fm friends matrix
• ..... more to come?

(There's also my most achieved work in terms of minimal design and programming, the hidden gem of this website: "No graphics" paste your taste, or a more lame version here.)

It's still not finished. Especially that matrix, I would like to find a way to make huge ones without breaking anything.

In the meanwhile, I still haven't learned how to design a nice website =(

Enjoy! If you're a Last.fm member you can leave me a shout. If not... I don't think you will ever be reading this.

pumpkinlll

⁽¹⁾ Edit: After some cleaning, this page is valid HTML 4.01 Transitionnal ! Better than nothing...

By pumpkinlll