{"id":1176,"date":"2010-01-06T00:14:13","date_gmt":"2010-01-06T00:14:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/dalelane.co.uk\/blog\/?p=1176"},"modified":"2019-06-23T13:13:22","modified_gmt":"2019-06-23T13:13:22","slug":"last-fm-for-television","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dalelane.co.uk\/blog\/?p=1176","title":{"rendered":"last.fm for television"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>One of the social network sites I&#8217;ve been using the longest is <a href=\"http:\/\/last.fm\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">last.fm<\/a>. <\/p>\n<p>(<em>If you know what last.fm is, bear with me teaching you to suck eggs for a few paragraphs&#8230; it gets more interesting &#8211; honest!<\/em>)<\/p>\n<p>The idea of last.fm is that a background service captures (or &#8220;<a target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/www.last.fm\/help\/faq?category=Scrobbling\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">scrobbles<\/a>&#8220;) the music that I listen to on my computer at home, on the mp3 player that I use in the car, and on my laptop in the office. <\/p>\n<p>This means that I now have a large record detailing the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.last.fm\/user\/dalelane\/library\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">music I&#8217;ve listened to<\/a> over the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.last.fm\/user\/dalelane\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">last three years<\/a>. <\/p>\n<p>I do this for a few reasons, including:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>The data is made available to me through <a href=\"http:\/\/www.last.fm\/api\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">a rich API<\/a>, which means I&#8217;m free to play with it, as well as take advantage of the creations of others, such as the wonderful visualisations generated by <a href=\"http:\/\/lastgraph.aeracode.org\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">lastgraph<\/a>\n<\/li>\n<li>I can see <a href=\"http:\/\/www.last.fm\/user\/dalelane\/friends\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">what my friends listen to<\/a>, which is interesting, as well as being a good way to come across new music\n<\/li>\n<li>last.fm use this detailed history of my music-listening tastes to make <a href=\"http:\/\/www.last.fm\/home\/recs\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">automated recommendations<\/a> of other music that I might like\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>This is all a long-winded way of saying that I like last.fm. I find it useful and interesting, and want the same for all the media that I consume &#8211; not just music.<\/p>\n<p>I <a href=\"\/\/dalelane.co.uk\/blog\/?p=289\">went looking<\/a> for an equivalent for the books that I read in August 2008, and started using <a href=\"http:\/\/www.goodreads.com\/review\/list\/1370155?view=covers\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">goodreads<\/a>. <\/p>\n<p>But what about the television that I watch? Could I create a last.fm-style scrobbler to capture what I watch on television? And then try and come up with a few examples of how I could share and visualise the data?<\/p>\n<p>This question is where I started at Christmas&#8230; and after a few evenings of hacking some Python together, I&#8217;ve come up with:<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"\/\/dalelane.co.uk\/tvscrobbling\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" style=\"border: thin black solid\" src=\"http:\/\/farm3.static.flickr.com\/2703\/4248932928_94ab53ab6f.jpg\" width=\"450\" height=\"448\" alt=\"last.fm for television\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Please go <a href=\"\/\/dalelane.co.uk\/tvscrobbling\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">take a look<\/a>. (<em>needs Flash &#8211; sorry<\/em>) <\/p>\n<p><!--more-->I&#8217;d love to know what you think. (<em>Either here, or on the site itself &#8211; I&#8217;ve used <a href=\"http:\/\/disqus.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">disqus<\/a> to add a threaded comments section to every set of graphs<\/em>)<\/p>\n<p>It&#8217;s still very rough-and-ready&#8230; think of it as a very early alpha, written in a hurry, by someone drinking too much beer. <\/p>\n<p>And there is hardly any data in there yet because it hasn&#8217;t been running for long ehough yet. (<em>I originally planned to leave it running for a few weeks before blogging about it, but it turns out I have the patience of a small child at Christmas. Sorry.<\/em>). <\/p>\n<p>But already you can see a few simple patterns emerging:<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"\/\/dalelane.co.uk\/tvscrobbling\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/farm3.static.flickr.com\/2624\/4249006706_f1dc447390_t.jpg\" width=\"95\" height=\"100\" alt=\"Time spent watching different programmes\" align=\"left\" hspace=10 vspace=10\/><\/a><strong>My favouite programmes are House, Top Gear and Doctor Who<\/strong><br \/>\n<br clear=\"all\"\/><a href=\"\/\/dalelane.co.uk\/tvscrobbling\/programmes.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><img decoding=\"async\" align=\"right\" hspace=10 vspace=10 src=\"http:\/\/farm3.static.flickr.com\/2741\/4248222671_c9575846d6_t.jpg\" width=\"88\" height=\"100 alt=\"Time spent watching different programmes\" \/><\/a>I spend too much time watching <em>House<\/em> on five USA<br \/>\n<br clear=\"all\"\/><a href=\"\/\/dalelane.co.uk\/tvscrobbling\/wordle.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" align=\"left\" hspace=10 vspace=10 src=\"http:\/\/farm3.static.flickr.com\/2687\/4249014068_2f8e6f5ece_t.jpg\" width=\"100\" height=\"55\" alt=\"wordle from descriptions of programmes that I watch\" \/><\/a>I watch a lot of comedy quizzes and panel shows &#8211; like <em>Have I Got News For You<\/em>, <em>Mock The Week<\/em>, etc.<br \/>\n<br clear=\"all\"\/><br \/>\n<a href=\"\/\/dalelane.co.uk\/tvscrobbling\/channels.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" align=\"right\" vspace=10 hspace=10 src=\"http:\/\/farm5.static.flickr.com\/4035\/4249032814_5a94301c6a_t.jpg\" width=\"85\" height=\"100\" alt=\"Time spent watching different channels\" \/><\/a><strong>I spend the most time watching programmes on BBC TWO<\/strong><br \/>\n<br clear=\"all\"\/><a href=\"\/\/dalelane.co.uk\/tvscrobbling\/channels.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" align=\"left\" vspace=10 hspace=10 src=\"http:\/\/farm5.static.flickr.com\/4065\/4248269419_56a437fd9d_t.jpg\" width=\"100\" height=\"77\" alt=\"Time spent watching channels from different media companies\" \/><\/a>In general, most of the time, we watch programmes from a BBC channel<br \/>\n<br clear=\"all\"\/><br \/>\n<strong>In the mornings, we mainly&#8230;<\/strong><br \/>\n<a href=\"\/\/dalelane.co.uk\/tvscrobbling\/recordedvslive.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" hspace=10 vspace=10 align=\"left\" src=\"http:\/\/farm5.static.flickr.com\/4058\/4249056604_4df4959750_t.jpg\" width=\"76\" height=\"100\" alt=\"Time spent watching live television\" \/><\/a><a href=\"\/\/dalelane.co.uk\/tvscrobbling\/placewatching.html\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/farm3.static.flickr.com\/2501\/4248294251_69118d6e1d_t.jpg\" width=\"72\" height=\"100\" hspace=10 vspace=10 align=\"left\" alt=\"Where I watch television\" \/><\/a><br \/>\nwatch live television<\/p>\n<p>watch television in the dining room<br \/>\n<br clear=\"all\"\/><a href=\"\/\/dalelane.co.uk\/tvscrobbling\/recordedvslive.html\" title=\"My most watched live television programmes by dalelane, on Flickr\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/farm5.static.flickr.com\/4052\/4248306669_83bcd26d69_t.jpg\" width=\"100\" height=\"55\" vspace=10 hspace=10 align=\"right\" alt=\"My most watched live television programmes\" \/><\/a>and of the live television we watch, most of it is News or breakfast news programmes<br \/>\n<br clear=\"all\"\/><br \/>\n<a href=\"\/\/dalelane.co.uk\/tvscrobbling\/placewatching.html\" title=\"Where we watch TV in the evening by dalelane, on Flickr\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/farm5.static.flickr.com\/4048\/4249099972_86669bf2ca_t.jpg\" width=\"72\" height=\"100\" hspace=10 vspace=10 align=\"right\" alt=\"Where we watch TV in the evening\" \/><\/a><a href=\"\/\/dalelane.co.uk\/tvscrobbling\/recordedvslive.html\" title=\"Television I watch in the evening by dalelane, on Flickr\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" align=\"right\" vspace=10 hspace=10 src=\"http:\/\/farm5.static.flickr.com\/4028\/4249093308_bcea602d45_t.jpg\" width=\"71\" height=\"100\" alt=\"Television I watch in the evening\" \/><\/a><strong>In the evenings, we mainly&#8230;<\/strong><br \/>\nwatch recorded programmes  <\/p>\n<p>watch television in the sitting room<br \/>\n<br clear=\"all\"\/><br \/>\n<a target=\"_blank\" href=\"\/\/dalelane.co.uk\/tvscrobbling\/timeofday.html\" title=\"Television watching at the weekend by dalelane, on Flickr\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/farm3.static.flickr.com\/2794\/4249109490_f31f7dcae1_t.jpg\" width=\"63\" height=\"100\" hspace=10 vspace=10 align=\"left\" alt=\"Television watching at the weekend\" \/><\/a><strong>At the weekends, we&#8230;<\/strong><br \/>\nGet up a little later than on weekdays. <\/p>\n<p>And the TV is left on for a bit longer.<br \/>\n<br clear=\"all\"\/><br \/>\n<a target=\"_blank\" href=\"\/\/dalelane.co.uk\/tvscrobbling\/attentionspan.html\" title=\"Lengths of programmes I watch on TV by dalelane, on Flickr\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/farm5.static.flickr.com\/4069\/4248343851_3326101afa_t.jpg\" width=\"100\" height=\"59\" align=\"right\" hspace=10 vspace=10 alt=\"Lengths of programmes I watch on TV\" \/><\/a><strong>Most of the programmes that I watch are half an hour long<\/strong><br \/>\n<a href=\"\/\/dalelane.co.uk\/tvscrobbling\/attentionspan.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" align=\"left\" hspace=10 vspace=10 src=\"http:\/\/farm3.static.flickr.com\/2738\/4248352321_64ca2a57a1_t.jpg\" width=\"100\" height=\"65\" alt=\"Time spent watching TV before I channel-hop\" \/><\/a>But on the whole, I tend to watch for 15 &#8211; 30 mins at a time before channel-hopping<br \/>\n<br clear=\"all\"\/><br \/>\nYou get the idea. <\/p>\n<p>It&#8217;s a start&#8230; I&#8217;ve got a <a href=\"\/\/dalelane.co.uk\/tvscrobbling\/futureplans.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">ton of ideas<\/a> of how I&#8217;d like to extend this. But even now, it&#8217;s strangely compelling to see the different graphs build up. <\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/farm5.static.flickr.com\/4061\/4248858381_667fd06781_d.jpg\" width=\"450\" height=\"437\" style=\"border: thin solid black\"\/><\/p>\n<p>As an added benefit, tinkering with this over Christmas also managed to remove any lingering doubts my family had as to just how geeky I really am \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>One of the social network sites I&#8217;ve been using the longest is last.fm. (If you know what last.fm is, bear with me teaching you to suck eggs for a few paragraphs&#8230; it gets more interesting &#8211; honest!) The idea of last.fm is that a background service captures (or &#8220;scrobbles&#8220;) the music that I listen to [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,8],"tags":[251,443,444,306,398,427],"class_list":["post-1176","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-code","category-web","tag-lastfm","tag-scrobble","tag-set-top-box","tag-television","tag-tv","tag-vdr"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dalelane.co.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1176","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dalelane.co.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dalelane.co.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dalelane.co.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dalelane.co.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1176"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dalelane.co.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1176\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dalelane.co.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1176"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dalelane.co.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1176"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dalelane.co.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1176"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}