At Grooveshark, we have a feature that does this and it works amazingly well. If you click on the people icon at the upper left hand corner of the screen you'll see a feed of what your friends are currently listening to on Grooveshark.
The feature has become so useful, that I often discover new music to listen to through it much more so than algorithmic recommendations. Social recommendations are indeed the best way to discover new music.
In fact, one interesting example of this is when one of our co-workers began recommending everyone listen to Mumford and Sons about 10 months ago. Within a month, everyone's feeds were filled with Mumford and Sons playlists. I remember looking at my feed and thinking "Who the hell are Mumford And Sons". Turns out they're awesome and got super popular.
I don't think the billboard charts are global.
For Australia -- They overall for the year charted at 52 in 2009 and 8 in 2010 (In terms of sales anyway).
From wikipedia: "The band's debut album, Sigh No More, was released in the United Kingdom in October 2009, and February 2010 in the United States."
It's nice to see Australia getting a media release before the US for a change. :)
Yeah I understand. It's probably better that you aren't tied to the content. I'll be curious to see how you innovate with this idea and to see how users react to a site that isn't part of their core music destination.
Good luck! Btw, if you need any help getting through to anyone at GS or help with our API, feel free to message me.
