Last.fm is a music website created on 20th March 2002 in London, United Kingdom which was acquired by CBS Corporation for $280 million (£140 million) in May 2007. The acquisition aimed to enhance CBS's online presence and leverage Last.fm's social networking capabilities and dataset, but unfortunately the website started to lose traction under CBS who didn't understand what Last.fm was. They had accidentally bought a global cultural music museum and spent many years running/ruining it as a loss-leading hypermarket.
Last.fm have announced their independence from CBS today! Hopefully this will allow a complete return to form without the ongoing constraints of corporate ownership. Last.fm has always been superior to services like Spotify and with this recent news we are very hopeful it will be able to regain some lost ground.
With independence fully restored, it finally has the freedom to:
- rebuild the community features CBS stripped out
- fix the API that’s been broken for years
- restore the social layer that made it magical
- modernise without industry restrictions
- reconnect with the community who have kept it alive
It’s the first time in a long time that Last.fm’s future feels like it belongs to music lovers again. Mediafeeder profiles have always linked through to Last.fm. If you haven't signed up for a free Last.fm account yet, now is the time \m/
