Lastfm Love Tweet

Yet another way to deactivate your account….

A number of people have tried unsuccessfully to deactive their accounts.  I am looking into why that is, but in the meantime, there is a foolproof way to get lastfmlovetweet out of your twitter stream.  Simply remove its oauth access.

1. Click on the ‘settings’ link in your twitter account
2. Click on ‘connections’
3. Find the lastfmlove icon, and click on ‘revoke access’

Once you’ve done this, I couldn’t send lastfmlovetweets on your behalf even if I wanted to!

New way to deactivate your account

As much as it breaks my heart, some users want to deactivate their account.  I recommend you reconsider - I mean, if you deactivate your account, who is going to tweet your lastfm loved tracks for you???

After thinking it over for a while, if you still want to go through with it, here’s what you do:  To deactivate your account, all you have to do it send a tweet to lastfm_love with the word deactivate.

For example:

d lastfm_love deactivate

or

@lastfm_love deactivate

OAuth has arrived!

At long last, lastfmlovetweet supports OAuth.  What does that mean?  That means we don’t need to store your password anymore, and that means that lastfmlovetweet just got more secure.

For new users, nothing to see here.  If you didn’t enter your twitter password when you signed up, then you are already using OAuth.

For users who signed up the old way, you can re-sign up and you will automatically switched to OAuth.  (If you have a custom tweet format, you wont lose it.)

If you aren’t sure if you are using OAuth or not, you can check in your twitter settings.  Sign into twitter and go to settings/connections.  If you see LastfmLoveTweet listed, then you are using OAuth.  If not, then go ahead and sign up again.

New default tweet - Now with Amazon links!

As of this posting amazon links will be included in the default tweet format for new users!

The amazon links have been in test for a few weeks, and they seem to be working properly.

As always there are a number of ways to customize your tweet format described in the how to posts.

Peter

New (easier) ways to customize your tweets!

I think one of the cool features of lastfmlovetweet is the ability to customize your tweet.  Currently about 8% of users have custom tweets, and while I have always wanted it to be more, I chalked it up to complexity.

Well, no more excuses folks!  I am happy to introduce 2 new ways to customize your tweets.

I. Choose your own tweet format

Here are a bunch of possible tweet formats for you to choose from: (1st the format and then an example tweet.)

1. #lastfm #love %t by %a - lastfm: %l[ amazon: %amazon_album_or_track]
   #lastfm #love Livin’ on a Prayer by Bon Jovi - lastfm: http://bit.ly/Wc1mt amazon: http://bit.ly/3rAt4
2. #lastfm #love %t by %a - lastfm: %l[ amazon: %amazon_uk_album_or_track]
   #lastfm #love Livin’ on a Prayer by Bon Jovi - lastfm: http://bit.ly/Wc1mt amazon: http://bit.ly/Z3e3C
3. #lastfm #love %t by[ %a] %l
   #lastfm #love Livin’ on a Prayer by Bon Jovi http://bit.ly/Wc1mt
4. ♥ %t by %a lastfm: %l[ amazon: %amazon_album_or_track]
   ♥ Livin’ on a Prayer by Bon Jovi lastfm: http://bit.ly/Wc1mt amazon: http://bit.ly/3rAt4
5. ♥ %t by %a lastfm: %l[ amazon: %amazon_uk_album_or_track]
   ♥ Livin’ on a Prayer by Bon Jovi lastfm: http://bit.ly/Wc1mt amazon: http://bit.ly/Z3e3C
6. ♥ %t by %a %l
   ♥ Livin’ on a Prayer by Bon Jovi http://bit.ly/Wc1mt
7. I ♥ %t by %a lastfm: %l[ amazon: %amazon_album_or_track]
   I ♥ Livin’ on a Prayer by Bon Jovi lastfm: http://bit.ly/Wc1mt amazon: http://bit.ly/3rAt4
8. I ♥ %t by %a lastfm: %l[ amazon: %amazon_uk_album_or_track]
   I ♥ Livin’ on a Prayer by Bon Jovi lastfm: http://bit.ly/Wc1mt amazon: http://bit.ly/Z3e3C
9. I ♥ %t by %a %l
   I ♥ Livin’ on a Prayer by Bon Jovi http://bit.ly/Wc1mt
10. ♥ %t by %a ☊ %l [$ %amazon_album_or_track]
    ♥ Livin’ on a Prayer by Bon Jovi ☊ http://bit.ly/Wc1mt $ http://bit.ly/3rAt4
11. ♥ %t by %a ☊ %l [£ %amazon_uk_album_or_track]
    ♥ Livin’ on a Prayer by Bon Jovi ☊ http://bit.ly/Wc1mt £ http://bit.ly/Z3e3C

If you want to use one of them, just send an @ or d message to lastfm_love as follows (In this example I am choosing tweet format 4):

@lastfm_love tweet format 4

Thats it!  Sending this message will set your tweet format to the 4th option on the list. (If this feature gets used, I’ll add more options.)

II. Copy someone elses format

So, the format you want isn’t on the list, but you’re reading your twitter stream and you see the coolest lastfmlovetweet format on the whole interwebs.  Well, guess what?  You can copy that format for yourself!  And its EASY!  All you have to do is @ or d the following to lastfm_love (Just substitute <some_user> with the twitter username)):

@lastfm_love tweet format @<some_user>

Easy enough?  So no more excuses!!!   Customize that tweet!!!!!

Amazon links update (still in beta, but works ok)

*** UPDATE - just to be clear, these links are available to all users to try.  I am just keeping this in beta because it is still a little rough around the edges.  The only thing I see changing at this point would be more links types added, and better accuracy in the results. ***

A few new links - Here is a list of all amazon links you can add to your tweet:

• %amazon_album - link to the album’s mp3s on amazon
• %amazon_uk_album - link to the album’s mp3s on amazon uk
• %amazon_track - link to the track’s mp3 on amazon
• %amazon_uk_track - link to the track’s mp3 on amazon uk
• %amazon_album_or_track - First tries to get the album, if it can’t find it, gets the track.
• %amazon_uk_album_or_track - First tries to get the album, if it can’t find it, gets the track. (uk)

I recommend using the last 2 links, as they have the best chance of generating a good link to amazon.  US and UK are the only amazon stores that support the mp3 search, so thats all I support for now.  If you want a different country, let me know and if I get enough interest, I’ll see what I can do.  (Like link to the CD, but does anyone buy CDs anymore?)

Full instructions on updating your tweet format are here.

Amazon links are here! (For testing)

I have implemented links to amazon album and track pages.  This is currently a test period, so the only way to use them is to add them to your custom tweet format.  Details on how to set a custom tweet format can be found here.

The only differences are that now there are 2 additional variables you can use:

• %amazon_album - links to the mp3s for the album
• %amazon_track - links to the mp3 for the track

AND the tweet format now supports ‘sections’.  Sections work as follows:

Lets say you have a tweet format as follows:

I just LOVED ‘%t’ by ‘%a’!  Buy it on amazon at %amazon_album

Now, since we are all very hip, and listen to some very underground music, what happens when amazon doesn’t have anything by the artist?  What happens when the search of amazon comes up empty?

Well, this is what would happen:

I just LOVED ‘Leo the Great’ by ‘The Windsor Terrace All Stars’!  Buy it on amazon at

hmmm.  Not so good.  Well, thats where ‘sections’ come into play.  If I set my tweet format as follows:

I just LOVED ‘%t’ by ‘%’!  [Buy it on amazon at %amazon_album]

Then if there was no value for %amazon_album, the whole section (between the square brackets) would be ignored.  Then my tweet would look like:

I just LOVED ‘Leo the Great’ by ‘The Windsor Terrace All Stars’!

Much better, right?

So, there you have it.  Let the amazon linking commence, oh, and please leave any questions, comments, suggestions, thoughts, etc. in the comments below or feel free to contact me on twitter.

Peter

What about buy links?

As lastfmlovetweet has grown, I have been considering adding buy links to the end of the tweets.  These links would point to the loved track’s album on Amazon.com and an affiliate account would be embedded into the link.

In thinking about the best way to go about this I have come up with a number of ideas that I would like to share and hopefully get some feedback on or generate some discussion.

1. I don’t want to force buy links on any of my users.

2. I would be happy to share the revenue (meager as it may be) with my users by allowing you to have your amazon affiliate ID (if you have one) inserted into the links on your loved tracks some percentage of the time. (50/50?)

3. While I wouldn’t change the default format for my current users, I would like to add the buy link to the default format of new users once its implemented.

4. Users would be allowed to remove the buy links either by opting out, or by setting the custom tweet format to not include them.

5. I may instead have the buy links appear on a percentage of the tweets that the user can specify with some minimum value.

I guess what I’m trying to do is balance my desire to generate some revenue from lastfmlovetweet, add value to the service by giving readers of the tweet a quick way to buy the track, and at the same time to not alienate you, my users.  Am I being overly cautious about this?  Would you not care in the least if I added buy links?  Would you even notice?  Or would having buy links on the tweets drive you away?

You input on this is very imprtant to me!  Please feel free to comment below, or contact me on twitter.  Thanks!

Oh, and if anyone wants to pilot the buy links let me know.  I expect to start testing sometime next week.

Peter

Import your loved tracks into tumblr (or just about anywhere)

*** UPDATE 3/27/09 After some experimentation, I am not happy with either a pipes solution or using a feed of twitter search results (described below).  The best solution, I think, would be to use the tumblr API to generate the posts.  That would allow me to include pictures, or other media to make the tumblr posts more than just tweets in tumblr.  Any ideas are welcome, but this one may take some time, so please be patient! ***

*** UPDATE 2/26/09 Several users (myself included) are seeing some strange formatting problems when following this process - I will work on getting a yahoo pipe togather that fixes these problems.   Stay tuned… ***

A user asked if there is a way to import your lastfmlovetweets into tumblr without having all of your tweets imported.

My first thought was to use yahoo pipes, but then I realizes that theres a much easier way that anyone can setup in just a few minutes.

Basically you want to do a search on twitter, and then grab the feed for that search and import the search results into tumblr.  Make sense?  Here are the steps broken down: (This assumes your tweets have the hashtags #lastfm #love - if they don’t you will have to make a search to suit your format.)

1. Go twitter’s search and enter the following search (using your twitter username instead of pootytang):  #lastfm #love from:pootytang

2. Click on ‘search’ to get to the results screen.

3. Grab the feed for that query.  (Right click on ‘Feed for this query’ and select ‘Copy link location’)

4. In another tab or window go to your tumblr dashboard and click on ‘customize’ and then ‘Feeds’

5. Paste the twitter ‘Feed for this query’ link from step 3 into the ‘Feed URL’ box.

6. You can decide whether to import as links, links with summaries, or Text without titles.

This process can be used to get your loved tracks pretty much anywhere that you can get an rss feed, so play around with it, and have fun!

If you do import your loved tracks into a tumblr blog, or anywhere else, please let me know in the comments of this post, as I would love to take a look!

Happy lastfmlovetweeting!

Peter

Where are my tweets?

Every now and again, I get a tweet asking if lastfmlovetweet is working, or why don’t I see my loved tracks?  Here are some things you can check:

1. Is lastfmlovetweet down?  The easiest way to check is view the search results from twitter.  They will show you the most recent lastfmlovetweets, and are usually updating every few minutes.

2. Are your loves tracks being recorded on lastfm?  To determine if you have loved a track recently, I check the feed provided at this link: http://ws.audioscrobbler.com/2.0/user/pootytang/lovedtracks.rss To check your feed, copy that link and replace ‘pootytang’ with your lastfm username.  The main reason your loved tracks wouldn’t show up is that lastfm only records the 1st time you love a track.  Once you have loved the track, the next time you love it it won’t show up in your feed, and it wont generate a tweet.

3. Has your twitter password changed? If you have changed your twitter pasword, you need to re-sign up.

4. Is twitter up?

5. Have you angered the lastfmlovetweet genie? If you haven’t used lastfm in a month or more, it will take a little while (up to 4 hours) for the lastfm love bot to start checking your account.  You can send an @ or dm to lastfm_love with the word ‘ping’ and the bot will start checking your account immediately.