Updates, status, and hacks for lastfmlovetweet, a mashup of your loved tracks on lastfm and twitter.

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!!!!!

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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

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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

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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.

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Cusomize your tweet!!!

*** UPDATE 3/21/09 Added amazon variables ***

*** UPDATE 2/24/09 The @lastfm_love bot now treats @ and dm the same.  You can update your tweet format by sending @lastfm_love just like you can with d lastfm_love. ***

Finally, you, my wonderful lastfmlovetweet user, can customize your tweet format to be whatever you like.
The default format has caused some dissatisfaction, and in polling you all to see what it should be it was clear that people had very different ideas. So, now it can be whatever your <3 (or ♥) desires.

Heres how it works:

You send a direct message or an @ reply to the lastfm_love user with the text you want (using the format described below), and then the lastfm_love user will set that to be your tweet format AND send you back a direct message with an example of how your format would look with your most recently loved track.

Examples:

For the example below I will use the track “Livin’ on a Prayer” by the inimitable Bon Jovi.
The current default is:
#lastfm #love Livin’ on a Prayer by Bon Jovi http://bit.ly/Wc1mt
 Lets say that you want your tweet to be:
I freakin’ LOVE Livin’ on a Prayer by Bon Jovi. It ROCKS! Check it out here: http://bit.ly/Wc1mt
Then the message you would send lastfm_love would be:
tweet format I freakin’ LOVE %t by %a. it ROCKS! Check it out here: %l
The first 2 words, “tweet format”, tell lastfm_love that you want to change your tweet format. The rest of the message is the format you want but the artist, track, and link are replaced by the following placeholders:

  • %a = artist
  • %t = track name
  • %l = lastfm link
  • %amazon_album_or_track - First tries to get the album, if it can’t find it, gets the track. (recommended)
  • %amazon_uk_album_or_track - First tries to get the album, if it can’t find it, gets the track. (uk) (recommended)
  • %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

The other parts of the tweet (The “I freakin’ LOVE”, “by”, and “It ROCKS! Check it out here:”) are static text and dont change from tweet to tweet. The %a, %t, and %l (and amazon placeholders) get filled in with whatever track you just loved.

Testing

If you aren’t sure about whether your format is correct, and you just want to test it out, then add the work “test” after “tweet format” and your will receive the test message, but your tweet format will NOT be changed. For example, sending the following message:
tweet format test I freakin’ LOVE %t by %a. it ROCKS! Check it out here: %l
will cause the direct message response to be sent, but will NOT change your tweet format.

More examples:

tweet format:
♥ Livin’ on a Prayer by Bon Jovi http://bit.ly/Wc1mt
message to send:
tweet format ♥ %t by %a %l

tweet format:
OMFG I ♥ Bon Jovi’s Livin’ on a Prayer http://bit.ly/Wc1mt
message to send:
OMFG I ♥ %a’s %t %l

If Things go Wrong:

If you need to reset your tweet format back to the default, send the following message:
tweet format default

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