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Last.fm purchased for $280 million

Posted by aubin on Wednesday, May 30, 2007 at 1:30 PM (EDT)

The popular social music site Last.fm has been purchased by CBS for $280 million. The site which allows users to log their music listening habits and find music has 15 million users, including many of you..

According to the BBC report, the company will continue to be run independently so day-to-day operations and features shouldn't be affected too dramatically. The news is also interesting because it represents one of the few significant social networking success stories for a company located outside of the United States.

Games and Technology (78 comments)

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Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way. Seriously.

Someone (May 30, 2007)

first

2+ Replies

lender (May 30, 2007)

As long as they leave it the way it is now I don't mind actually

Someone (May 30, 2007)

first is for queermos

Someone (May 30, 2007)

I just add the last.fm app to facebook...I figured this was coming....I wonder how much facebook will go for if Mark Zuckerberg ever gets over his steve jobs complex and sells it.

4+ Replies

baseball (May 30, 2007)

most likely considerably more than $1 billion

he's already turned down $975M outright, which was probably the right move

facebook is on it's way to youtube territory probably

guy who sold Myspace is looking like a chump now selling for $580M...probably could have done better if he waited

Someone (May 30, 2007)

Frankly, I'd rather have $580 million today than the possibility of ten times that amount a few years from now.

You only have so many years to live in your life. When the sum of money is that large, who cares if you have another billion as opposed to another year of your life to go enjoy it?

It'd be one thing if it was the difference between like $100,000 and $1 Million or something. Then I'd feel like a chump. But when you get paid $580 million, I think every other dollar you COULD have had is pretty inconsequential unless you have a massive ego to feed.

baseball (May 30, 2007)

i understand your point but Myspace is a bigger site than Facebook and it was only about a year between $580M offer for Myspace and $975M for Facebook

if it was like 5+ years that'd be different but one would think a year hold out for twice as much money would be doable

not that i'd do it or anything, i'd probably jump at the first chance to be set for life

Someone (May 30, 2007)

Fair enough, I guess my only concern would be if the market for this kind of investment fell completely flat while you were waiting for that extra half billion. It could happen overnight and then you would feel REALLY stupid now that your site is worth pennies on the dollar. It only takes one well placed lawsuit or federal ruling on oversite requirements for social networking websites for th

I think facebook has more longevity to it so at the end of the day it might be worth more to someone with a long term outlook.

Myspace is so poorly done and prone to flaws and hackers that I just can't see people putting up with it for much longer. Facebook is much more put together and efficiently programmed. It's more secure and you don't have to put up with porn sites trying to friend request you.

video_cognito (May 30, 2007)

Is that out already? I've been waiting for it.

Someone (May 30, 2007)

its a little buggy but its integrated well.

-andburntherest

Someone (May 30, 2007)

yeah but the dudes at myspace got 580M and got to keep their jobs running the site... not a bad deal. I think the guys who own friendster turned down a deal, and look what happened to them? When someone that big comes knocking your almost better off selling, in hopes that they just dont steal your idea, and build a new site that they can advertise the hell out of, and drive you out of relevency.

KurtTGS (May 30, 2007)

Cavs in 7?

3+ Replies

TommyTumult (May 30, 2007)

Senators in 6.

Someone (May 30, 2007)

agreed good sir

Someone (May 31, 2007)

No friggin way. "Canada's Team" the Ducks will win in 5

Shindo (adam) (May 30, 2007)

This site just owns me for some reason. I couldn't care less about what other people are listening to or the radio app, but having my own listening habits tracked is fascinating. It actually sort of bothers me if I'm listening to something that I know isn't going to be tracked.

Also, I just found this Last.fm Mainstream-O-Meter thing, which is fun: http://mainstream.vincentahrend.com/

I'm 21%: http://mainstream.vincentahrend.com/user/adamwhite/

-adam

23+ Replies

Aubin (May 30, 2007)

I haven't used it in awhile, but I got 6.93%. I either win or lose depending on your perspective.

lender (May 30, 2007)

prety cool
9.97% here

baseball (May 30, 2007)

7.73% although my listening habits aren't accurate really because i do a good majority of it at work which isn't tracked

Punknews group was 26.91% last week, selloutz!!

sickboi (chris) (May 30, 2007)

The garage-rock revival is dying, so expect that percentile to decrease ;)

ChesterfieldKing (May 30, 2007)

I got 7.93%. Not bad, though it's mostly Springsteen and Aphex Twin pushing my score up.

Cannsaw (May 30, 2007)

22.80%

OzmanX (May 30, 2007)

cool. I got 7.84 %

skaboom (May 30, 2007)

It's pretty egotistical, but I feel the same way. Like hey, I'm being a nerd on the computer listening to music, but it's important enough that it's going on the internet for everyone to see.

Someone (May 30, 2007)

9.15%
NOFX, DKM, and Bad Religion pushed me up a bit.

-andrew13

Someone (May 30, 2007)

20.08%

however i do have to say having the old AFI catalog (where each cd has like 20 songs on it) did really skew my results cuz of just how often those songs show up on random play.

fritobandito (May 30, 2007)

14.34% here.
my love for Bright Eyes killed my indie punx cred. ha.

Angiepants (May 30, 2007)

16.82 % mainstream

Must be what I get for enjoying The Beatles, Springsteen and NIN. Ho hum.

I-type-poorly (May 30, 2007)

15.64 %

Green Day and Beck killed me.

randomhero323 (May 30, 2007)

9.26

MonkeyFracas (May 30, 2007)

That's awesome. 11.48% for me.

Someone (May 30, 2007)

24.13 %

surprised it's not higher with modest mouse, the clash and the beatles in my top 10.

Someone (May 30, 2007)

8.85%

...because of Explosions in the Sky. I wasn't aware they were that popular.

allison_le_gnome (May 30, 2007)

I got 10.89%.

Someone (May 30, 2007)

I got 4.67%.

The Pogues, Ted Leo, and Against Me pushed mine up there.

brown (May 30, 2007)

7.91 % mainstream

... franz ferdinand tried to kill me.

Someone (May 30, 2007)

12.35%

Johnny Cash, Brand New, and Alkaline Trio pushed me up

-ConsolationPrizefighter

rubyx (May 31, 2007)

9.37

awkward (May 31, 2007)

i got 10%. which is cool.

modest mouse was 60% mainstream and bob dylan 59%, haha.

video_cognito (May 30, 2007)

Holy fuck!

MN_punkmaster-skaman (May 30, 2007)

Could be worse. Rupert Murdoch could own it.

1+ Reply

I-type-poorly (May 30, 2007)

beat me to it. I love the site too. Just this weekend I discovered a handful of great Swedish songwriters off it.

JerryCola (May 30, 2007)

So when is punknews going to be bought out?

I'll give you a five dollars for it, sorry it's all I got in my wallet right now...

3+ Replies

Shindo (adam) (May 30, 2007)

Punknews is worth at least $16.95.

-adam

Someone (May 30, 2007)

i'll give you $25, final offer.
what address do i paypal to?

-andrew13

skaboom (May 30, 2007)

According to http://www.dnscoop.com/

Site Value Report
The estimated value of http://www.punknews.org is: $91,770

This value is calculated based on several factors shown above, including: Links, Traffic (Alexa), age of the domain, site category, domain keyword popularity, and overall occurrences of the domain name on the web.

skankin_in_the_pit (May 30, 2007)

Jones hardly posting anymore has to devalue the site by at least five or six grand. He was very valuable.

sickboi (chris) (May 30, 2007)

I'm really curious what CBS will use the site for. I'm guessing label-sponsor advertisement? I.E.- An Against Me! poster hanging in some club on CSI, or maybe the Lawrence Arms performing on the King of Queens?

2+ Replies

baseball (May 30, 2007)

King of Queens just ended

man i'm gonna miss Kevin James

Wentz_Equals_Death (May 30, 2007)

yeah, RIP

Someone (May 30, 2007)

I'm dying to know what the synergies are for these companies to spend billions on these websites. They seem far to intangible and fleeting for me to put that kind of value on them based on advertising revenues alone.

I mean back in the day it was all about MP3.com, Friendster and Livejournal. Now all those seem to be pretty much dead. I think Myspace is going to end up there soon as well.

It's not like these millions of dollars is being spent to aquire a tangible asset or a brand with 50 years of history. When Cerebus made an offer on Chrysler, they were buying into plants, equipment, talent, and brands that go back to WW2 (Jeep) and beyond.

All these companies are buying now are weak brands with fickle audiences that could jump to the next big thing at the drop of a hat.

4+ Replies

Angiepants (May 30, 2007)

Livejournal is still thriving.

Someone (May 30, 2007)

I don't know if thriving is the word I would use. I haven't seen anyone I know that still maintains a livejournal account.

Someone (May 30, 2007)

well, hell, lets base our financial plans on what the few people you know are doing.

Someone (May 31, 2007)

Whoa easy does it killer. This is a pretty benign topic and comment to get your panties in a bunch over.

baseball (May 30, 2007)

i disagree, i think internet communities are here to stay

and there's practically limitless possibilities for ways to advertise and reach millions of people

as long as they're managed adequately and keep up with technology trends and continue to innovate these companies are going to see massive returns on their investments, even if they seem very high right now

Someone (May 30, 2007)

I'm not saying they aren't here to stay. I just don't think the valuations are correct. There will always be internet communities, I just don't think that SPECIFIC players have that high a probability of sticking around to make them worth that high of an investment. There seems to be a pretty reliable turnover with all of these sites.

I certainly wouldn't give Myspace even a 1 in 4 chance of being the top social networking site 5 years from now based on the past 10 years of internet history. I don't know if any of you can remember this far, but hardly any of the sites that were a big deal back in 1999 before the dotcom bust even exist today. Only a few big ones with reasonable business plans like Yahoo, Amazon and Ebay made it out alive.

Sites like myspace will come and go as new generations come in to set the new trends and old ge

show rest of comment

baseball (May 30, 2007)

ok i get what you're saying now, you're probably right

how quickly we forget the dotcom bust

fritobandito (May 30, 2007)

14.34% here.
my love for Bright Eyes killed my indie punx cred. ha.

Dante3000 (rich) (May 30, 2007)

So I used this thing to track my iTunes but then my iTunes wouldn't close properly. It told me to eliminate all plugins (the only one was last.fm).
I did and then it started exiting fine. Not sure if anyone else has ever had this.
I never reinstalled it because I got sick of people harassing me about the level of Cher and Village People I listened to.
-Dante

1+ Reply

GlassPipeMurder (May 30, 2007)

Lol.

GlassPipeMurder (May 30, 2007)

wasn't this a UK-based site?

1+ Reply

irish_joo (May 30, 2007)

Im pretty sure it still is

ashtraymonument (May 30, 2007)

it wont track dell musicmatch jukebox, and i hate WMP, so i will .never use the site.

7+ Replies

GlassPipeMurder (May 30, 2007)

itunes is good and free.

allison_le_gnome (May 30, 2007)

Are you serious? Musicmatch Jukebox is probably the shittiest media player ever. The computer had it set as the default for everything at first, and every time I accidentally opened something in it it would take forever just to close it again.

sickboi (chris) (May 30, 2007)

Winamp locks up so easily and eats up so much god damn memory. Same with Musicmatch and iTunes. Suprisingly, I've found myself using Windows Media Player a lot more.

Someone (May 30, 2007)

Winamp with 20k songs uploaded in it kills my computer :(

Someone (May 30, 2007)

I use MediaMonkey these days after Itunes shit out on me...

Someone (May 30, 2007)

That's why you use Winamp.

misterspike (May 30, 2007)

Actually, last.fm is what got me to stop using musicmatch. Man, am I glad I did. I may hate the iTunes store (as I've stated ad nauseum), but that software is the Bee's Knees.

allison_le_gnome (May 30, 2007)

Last.fm is the only "social networking" (though I don't use it for that) site I fully endorse. And I'm glad it won't be changing.

misterspike (May 30, 2007)

I, too, am in love with last.fm and it's trackingness. Perfect for the music geekdom that populates this board.

Oh yeah, 10.38%

TheByrus (May 30, 2007)

damn you muse and your 77% mainstreamness!1!

1+ Reply

88-fingers-tony (May 31, 2007)

agreed. and the beatles are apparanelty 101% mainstream for some reason

Someone (May 30, 2007)

12.34% though that number may be skewed recently b/c I actually haven't been using my computer recently. Listening to the Clash, Counting Crows and Dashboard Confessional wrecked me.
-Canaandrumz

wearestillalive (May 31, 2007)

Selloutz
turning of audioscrobbler omg

istapledmyfoot (June 1, 2007)

6.92, I listen to some esoteric shit.

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