When you’re looking for new playlists, there is no reason not to pull out all of the stops. Last.fm was the early music app darling, allowing us to scrobble our way through tracks. All of the data we’ve put into the service based on our listening habits can be pulled out via its API. But what can we do with all of that information? SpotiLast has figured that out, by using artist suggestions made to you on Last.fm to compile Spotify playlists.

By simply allowing SpotiLast to access your Last.fm account, you’ll be given a playlist automagically based on your listening habits and recommendations to use on Spotify. It’s a music listener’s dream.

Since both services have a publicly available API, developers can tinker around with mashup apps like SpotiLast, it’s one of the most exciting spaces for me on the web. Taking data from one place, and using it elsewhere is exactly what the Internet is all about.

More Tori Amos, please

I don’t use Last.fm as much as I did a few years ago, but that’s not to say that I didn’t use it religiously for quite a while. All of the tracks that I used to listen to on iTunes would be sent directly to Last.fm, creating a stream for all of my friends to see. It’s exactly what Facebook’s ticker reminds me of. The data is still there though, even though I don’t use it.

Once you log into the app with Last.fm, it only takes a few minutes for a playlist to be created for you. I have to say that it’s pretty spot on, considering I haven’t listened to this Nirvana cover by Tori Amos on either service, but it definitely fits into the style of music that I like.

You can click on the artist, track, or album name to launch the Spotify desktop app, making SpotiLast a great way to discover new music for your playlists on the service.

This is definitely one of those mashups that you are extremely appreciative for, but never thought to ask someone to make. Luckily, this one saw the light of day.

➤ SpotiLast

If you’ve taken a lot of photos using Instagram and are looking for a new way to share them, the Boston Music Hack Day app “Carousel” might be right up your alley, developed by hack day participant Johannes Wagener.

If you’re familiar with the show “Mad Men”, there’s an episode where Don Draper creates a marketing campaign for Kodak, in which he tells a story while going through slides on what he calls a “Carousel”. If you’ve never seen it, it’s worth watching the video clip before trying out the app.

With Carousel, you can pull in your Instagram photos and let Don Draper give his best sales pitch using your favorites.

The photos appear on the screen, as if you were a part of the infamous “Mad Men” meeting.

Alternatively, you can record your own soundtrack for the presentation. This is a fun mash-up, giving you a new way to display your photos to friends and family.

Be sure to check out my “Carousel” presentation, and share your own in the comments.

➤ Carousel

YouScrobble takes elements of Last.fm and Youtube and wraps them up in a neat package. What a shame that it’s almost certainly illegal.

YouScrobble is designed to make searching for music quick and easy. By combining Last.fm’s music database with YouTube’s library of music videos it creates a slick platform for finding and watching your favourites artists’ perform.

Because it’s pulling in data from Last.fm, not only does a search for a song reveal its video in an embedded YouTube player but you get an artist biography, photos and links similar artists.

So far, so slick. Discounting the fact that the design is basically ripped off YouTube (but it’s in green instead of red so I’m sure Google won’t mind </sarcasm>), there’s nothing illegal here – it’s a really good way to browse and discover music videos.

Where YouScrobble drops the ball is by enabling downloads. Yes, each song has a ‘Download’ link you can click to get a free copy of the song downloaded to your hard drive.

“YouScrobble uses Last.fm and YouTube to satisfy your needs and is therefore fully legal!” shouts the front page. That’s not strictly true.

You see, the download YouScrobble gives you isn’t a fully authorised MP3. Instead it’s scraping the audio from the YouTube video and saving it as an MP3. There are countless scripts, apps and websites that already do this but it doesn’t mean they’re legal. While YouTube is authorised to stream music (including via embedded players on other sites) downloads are a completely different thing.

Aside from the legal issue, the downloads aren’t always what you might expect. I tried it with a song I already own and like – ‘See A Penny (Pick It Up)’ by obscure American act YACHT. Rather than give me an crystal clear MP3 of the original recording I got the audio from this bootleg video of a live performance of the song. Sure, sometimes you’ll get the recording you expect, but not always.

So, unauthorised downloads that will annoy rightsholders and an inconsistent quality level that will frustrate users. A poor combination, and one that’s amplified on both fronts when you realise that they’re limiting you to 15 downloads per day unless you pay between $4.99 and $14.99 to upgrade to 100, 200 or 500 songs per day. How much of that do you reckon is going to the artists and record companies?

The YouScrobble Terms of Service basically say (it’s nothing to do with us if it’s illegal, that’s down to YouTube). I wouldn’t bet on that, guys.

Seriously, they’re playing with fire here. If I were them I’d be expecting a lawsuit any day. It’s a shame too; if the developers stuck to creating a better front-end for music discovery on YouTube they’d be onto a winner. Instead they’ve gone down the seedy route of scraping audio and charging for it.

Go back to the drawing board guys, or chances are you’ll be going to court.

[via Orli]