$280 Million for Last.fm?
Via Johnny, I just read about CBS acquiring Last.fm for 280 million simoleons:
CBS radio is the largest radio group in the United States, with 179 stations in the top 50 markets covering news, rock, country and urban music.
The firm’s president and CEO Leslie Moonves said: “Last.fm is one of the fastest growing online communities out there.”
He said Last.fm’s strength in building communities around music and syndicating content was “central to CBS”.
That’s over 18 bucks a user. Is that a lot or a little? I’d pay more attention to the details of these acquisition deals, but they don’t interest me on more than a wow-that’s-a-lot-of-cash level.
I joined Last.fm through the plug-in software with the more exotic name AudioScrobbler. Aside from exposing my shameful taste in music to the world, I didn’t really see much point. The same goes for Last.fm–it hasn’t proved particular sticky for me. I have, on rare occasions, tried to discover new music through Last.fm, but I’ve found Pandora to be more reliable.
I just visited Pandora, and see that I can’t use it because “we believe that you are in Malta”, and they’re only licensed for Americans.
May 30th, 2007 at 7:15 am
Pandora restricted non US users around a month ago. I use Last.fm primarily to track my own music listening habit (I like stats too Darren!) but on occasion I listen to the genre stations and find some new music I like.
Like you, I’m in the that’s a lot of cash bucket.
May 30th, 2007 at 11:41 am
Paying $18.66 per user seems high because I don’t think they can continue to grow under CBS. I know I don’t want a large corporation like CBS to have my music listening information.
Good thing I moved to http://soundcrank.com.