All words are made up. But it's rare that a single website makes up a word and gets millions of users and dozens of major companies to start using it, like Last.fm and "scrobbling."
Last.fm uses 'scrobbling' to track what music you listen to
Open any app with Last.fm integration, and you're going to see the word "scrobble" more times than you count. At this point, it's probably more recognizable than the name "Last.fm."
In short, "scrobble" is just the word that Last.fm uses to describe how it automatically tracks what music you listen to, and when. The act of tracking your music with Last.fm is called "scrobbling," and apps that connect to Last.fm are sometimes called "scrobblers."
When you listen to a song, Last.fm scrobbles the song by recording the song's title, its artist, its genre, and when you listened to it. All this information gets saved to your account, and Last.fm uses it to both generate lists of your favorite songs (both recently and of all-time) and recommend you new ones.
But it should be noted that just playing a song isn't enough to scrobble it. Depending on what Last.fm app you're using, you'll have to listen to anywhere between half of the song or the entire thing before Last.fm scrobbles and adds it to your listening history. Pausing the song for long stretches of time might stop Last.fm from scrobbling it too.
There's no official record of how the word "scrobble" came to be. Last.fm co-creator Richard Jones first created a music recommendation system called "Audioscrobbler" while attending the University of Southampton, and Last.fm still uses an updated version of that system to record your music tastes.
