Apparently Microsoft doesn't know that any features that don't suit your personal needs are "useless"...

Right.  No one who knows how Xbox Live works should be surprised by this, nor should they have expected this app to work differently from everything else.

it is a shame that you cant listen to lastFM in game but i guess if you want to listen to music, you listen to music without trying to hear the audio of NPC detailing information of your current quest.

bit of a shame that there is no support for Aus, yet again...

That is actually very straight forward. Obviously you have the Media Center extender but that requires you have the Media center on your PC which is now reasonably common now that it comes with lots of versions of Vista and the soon to be Vista. Also you have the Media Extender client thingy which used very briefly.  

The other is to use 3rd party streaming and encoding on the fly which is what I do. This allows you to stream Internet feeds such as the BBC Replay service as well as Movies, Music and Pictures.

I use TVersity http://tversity.com/ and have done for a long while and it works really well. Others to look out for are http://www.boxee.tv/homepage/  although this is not yet available for the Xbox at least but looks really good.

I do. I stream music from my pc to my 360 which is in my living room.

Lastfm will be another useless PR gimmick for the 360. What is the point if you have to do nothing else on the 360 ?

After the HDDVD drive turned into a cup handler, now the console itself turns into a 1980 radio ?

This thread made me realize that I never just listen to music. I listen to music while I work, read, workout, drive, cook, walk my dog, clean the house but never while doing nothing else. I would have the impression of wasting my time if I'd just sit and listen.

What is the point if you have to do nothing else on the 360 ?

I'm not sure you know how Last.FM works. It allows you to create a profile, select types of music and bands you like and it will generate your own personalized radio station out of it. In addition to this, it will connect you to other people who share you preference in music, gather their data and extract other artists/songs it thinks you might like. It's a great way to find new music that isn't completely mainstream and pumped out on a regular basis on normal radio. For me it's a great tool. I listen to music almost every waking moment of my life. While studying, driving, programming, and even gaming.

While I won't be able to use this DURING gameplay I'll still be able to find music I like and get it so I can play it off of my music memory stick during gameplay (Yes, I keep all my music on a 32 GB memory stick so that I can listen to it any time I'm close to an electronic device).

So you see, it can be greatly useful. I don't have time to dig around for new music but I'm always wanting to find some. This makes it effortless and as a Gold subscriber I get to make use of it for "free" instead of having to pay for a separate account on Last.FM.

After the HDDVD drive turned into a cup handler, now the console itself turns into a 1980 radio ?

I'm not sure if you have a 360 or an HD-DVD drive if you do, but if you're looking for new uses for your "cup handler" (assuming you have one) take a look at this: http://editorials.teamxbox.com/xbox/2166/Ways-to-Extend-Xbox-360-HD-DVDs-Life/p1/

1980's radio. Ha! Look above and see just how wrong you are. You've gotta chill out man. If you're taking this "war" seriously I think you should step outside and take a deep breath or two. If you're simply doing it for the "thrill" of annoying people then you seriously need to find a new hobby - or at least do it on GameTrailers.com. That type is welcome there.

guess I missed the useless part. Sounds like another great service that I can enjoy.

Nice post Priteshmodi. I just wish I would have known earlier that I could use a HD-DVD drive as a Street Fighter fireball attack blocker, would have been useful.

It's funny to see the reaction when people's expectations flop. As far as music listening, it's obvious that there are a few different preferences as to when and how people do it. At first I would have thought that listening to music while playing a game would be a distraction until someone mentioned Burnout. I myself don't care that Last FM isn't in game, I still think that it's a benefit to most 360 owners. I'm looking forward to this and all of the other good shit coming, all for a low low price of $40 a year.