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CBS Acquires Last.fm for $280 Million

By Ed Oswald, BetaNews

May 30, 2007, 2:36 PM

CBS said Wednesday it had acquired Last.fm in a $280 million cash transaction, continuing its effort to move into the online entertainment industry.

For some, the acquisition was unexpected. "CBS as a buyer though is surprising and is a sure sign that the media giant is getting serious about Web 2.0," TechCrunch's Michael Arrington.

The company recently purchased stock market site Wallstrip.com and strategically invested in both Spot Runner and Joost. Additionally, it has begun to offer its content across the web through the CBS Audience Network.

Founded in 2002, Last.fm currently has about 15 million active users according to company data. The site, like Pandora, mixes social networking with music to offer users personalized streaming music stations.

Users in about 200 countries access the site on a regular basis, with a majority of them coming from the US, Britain, Germany, Poland, Brazil and Japan. The user demographic tends to be the youth, which is increasingly prized among web advertisers.

After the acquisition, the site will continue to be independently operated by the original management team, although they have the additional task of working with other CBS divisions to integrate the site and its technologies with other CBS sites.

"Last.fm adds a terrific interactive extension to all of our properties and also is a huge step in CBS Corporation's overall strategy of expanding our reach online to transition from a content company into an audience company," CBS president and CEO Les Moonves said.

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By JimmyJackFunk21

edited Jun 1, 2007 - 4:05 PM

I don't think this deal is going to do much good for CBS. I think Last is overrated. I like Mercora a lot more. They have a huge catalog available, and they have the "M," which turns your smartphone into a wireless music player. Very cool, and I prefer them much more.

Score: 0

By Hellcat_M

posted May 30, 2007 - 7:44 PM

Well now you know CBS is going to start charging for the service. This is going to suck. Lucky there is still Pandora.

Score: 0

By keir

posted May 31, 2007 - 9:40 AM

I'm a last.fm subscriber, and i think if anything CBS will give everyone the subscription features for free - I don't think they bought last.fm for the subscription revenue - after all, most of the users don't subscribe, and probably plenty of those that do like me don't really use the extra features much but wanted to support the company. I think there's a good chance it will get sucky eventually, that's what usually happens, but I also think there's a good chance it will get better first.

Score: 0

By Steve Austin

posted May 31, 2007 - 3:56 AM

You don't know that...

If they are smart enough to snap up Last.FM for a fraction of it's worth, then they are smart enough to see that if they charge, it will die.

The data collected is of HUGE worth to a company like CBS. It's real data of music trends in varios regions..

My fear, is the data will be used to make buisness decisions on what artists get signed, what music gets released in certain regions. If your a minority, you may be frozen out, as the data does not show "your listen habbits match the curve"

Score: 0

By Second Shadow

posted May 31, 2007 - 1:00 AM

Unfortunately, Pandora is the latest victim of the upcoming Great Wall of (North) America ...
Even more regrettably, Pandora was left INSIDE the cage ... or box, whatever ... (or maybe THAT side is outside and we - the rest of the world - are INSIDE, hmmm ....)
Anyway, Pandora slammed the door on a few million foreign users about a month ago.
On the bright side of it, that event led me to discover a plethora of other Internet radio stations which will hopefully not suffer the same fate. Shoutcast (www.shoutcast.com) alone has a list of over 15,000 .... Guess I won't be missing Pandora after all :)

Score: 0

By yokozuna

posted May 31, 2007 - 3:46 AM

Ditto.

There is an interesting project known as Guruger http://www.guruger.com/about.html which comes from Gretech, the mother company of GOM Player. Gretech is the largest streaming content player in S. Korea as well as it has a strong position in China and Japan, so there is some hope. The project was started last Monday but looks promising.

Score: 0

By yokozuna

edited May 31, 2007 - 3:34 AM

Not really. Pandora cannot be listened worldwide (I know, I know, there are proxy servers...) like last.fm. Pandora was killed by lawyers, and it seems to me that last.fm will be completely destroyed by recording industry. Pity.

BTW, the newest beta (but stable...;-)) of the client is here: http://static.last.fm/cl...LastFM_Win_1.3.0.32.exe It is worth installing, it runs smoother and gives more options than v. 1.1.3.0.

edit: spelling