Don't miss your chance to help select the next social network to be supported by 8hands and vote in our ongoing poll!

The poll will only take a minute of your time; you won't even need to register. Simply choose your preferred network here, and we'll take care of the rest.

In the meantime, we'll give you an update on the leading contenders:

Last.fm is standing out with 41% of the vote, leaving Bebo in second place with only 17%.

So, who do you think should win? Which networks do you use that 8hands still does not support? This is your chance to make your voice heard - don't miss it!

We were always looking for a way to combine 8hands with our love of music. We believe that music exploring is a huge part of social networking – for some of us, It's the only reason to type the MySpace address into the browser (but let's be honest, most of us are geekier than that).

So it took us a while, but we are throwing the 8hands' octopus right into the music pool! We are starting a new music blog to tell you all about the great artists that we've found around the social networks sphere (mostly in MySpace, Last.fm, imeem & Bebo) and we'll use 8hands to spread the word & share favorite music videos with all of the 8hands users.

We, the 8hands mega-team, will post semi-daily recommendations about a not-too-big artist or band that is either unsigned or signed to a small indie label. We'll write about music creators that we believe use social networks as a huge promotion tool, and we will use 8hands promotion values to help our favorite artists of the bunch. Every week or so we will choose our favorite artist of the moment and upload a music video by him to our YouTube profile.

As you probably know, the 8hands YouTube videos come built-in into 8hands, so, unless you've deleted that location, you'll get every recommended video right into your 8hands!

That's great for the artists, because their videos will be exposed to many people, and it's amazing to the 8hands users, because, if they appreciate our taste in music (which we believe is superb) they will be able to discover new artists & share them with their friends by a simple drag & drop.

So… visit the 8hands music blog, add it's rss feed to your 8hands, and if there are any artists that fit the description above and you would like us to recommend about them, we would love it if you'll comment or write us to info (at) 8hands (dot) com.

Oh, and if you want an instant music recommandation, without any real words around them, you can always check out our last.fm profile to see what we are listening to in the office.

It was bound to happen – our favorite music community, last.fm, has announced a huge upgrade to their network: Soon it will feature music videos and basically will try to replace that lame-old-station MTV.

The video section will be similar to the current audio section, enabling users to create their own personalized video channels according to their music taste (and in case of our 8hands mega-team we are talking about a deliciously good collection).

Last.fm intends to upload the videos with the record labels permission, and going legit seems to be as easy as whispering 8hands: Over 20,000 independent labels are already into it (YAY that!) and some of the majors, especially EMI & Warner, also jump right in (we gotta give them some credit for not being too old fashioned).

If that won't make you say "I will never watch a music video clip in YouTube ever again", maybe the next fact will: Last.fm reported that the videos quality on their site will be significantly higher than that of YouTube, and that the audio will be encoded at 128kbps compared to YouTube’s 64kbps.

That brings us to the reason that last.fm is growing, upgrading itself & gaining more & more loyal fans – they are all about the quality, and that's something that isn't so common in the social networking world.

Yes, the biggest advantage of last.fm isn't the amazing internet radio player it's got. We love last.fm because of its beautiful design, clean interface & lack of pop-ups and spam. In a way, last.fm is the apple version of the social networks (and as you know, we are working on last.fm & mac support for 8hands, so hold your breath).

Unlike MySpace's ugly custom layout, last.fm users don't need to "pimp up their profile" – you know, if it's not broken don't fix it - especially not with a bikini MySpace Backround.

We are thrilled to see that there is still some passion around for the aesthetics, and even if you won't glitter all over the place, you can still make it in this 2.0 town.

Realizing that makes us want to make 8hands as gorgeous as possible – actually, that was always our plan. But we are still at an Alpha stage, and that goes both for bugs & designs. Just know, we are planning to sweep you off your feet eventually.

Oh, by the way – so far each member of our team had his own last.fm profile, but soon we will open a profile for the entire 8hands office – so you could see exactly what we listen to.

While MySpace are trying to set new tools for musicians to earn some bucks out of their music, the guys over at Last.fm launched a new FREE download chart, that shows the most popular free downloads on Last.fm each week, and basically offers a new way for artists to promote themselves.

The new feature has managed to prove its impact quite fast, as the top artist on the list right now are is an unknown UK band called: "Gay Against You", and by hitting the chart they're causing a bit of a fuss over there.

The ability of 2 guys playing an atari-noisy-pop kind of thing to hit the charts is amazing and although the guys have a lot against MySpace, it seems like they aren't afraid to use Last.fm's tools to help them promote their needs.

The free download chart can become a new method for Indie musicians to get their 15 minutes of fame. If anyone out there still has doubts about the benefits of free music downloads, this move has proven that, at least for Indie bands, it can only do good. Last.fm are not trying to dictate whether people should give away their music for free or not, they're just offering a new tool for those who simply want to spread their music around in order to promote themselves, and don't mind giving their music for free.

The Last.fm download chart is a great tool for new artists and another step for Last.fm in their differentiation from MySpace, as well as presenting its users with fresh content on a regular basis. Not only is the download chart trendy - as MP3s are still pretty much the hottest buns on the Net - but it can also develop unique community trends of its own, with no sales, purchases or money involved in the mix.

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