450 million for last.fm?
Rumors are afloat that Viacom is in negotiations to purchase last.fm
for $450 million. That's a whole lot of money! Last.fm is
such a super music discovery site, I wish Martin, RJ, Norman and all of
the last.fm crew the best, and I hope they do well - but I really worry
what will happen to last.fm should Viacom take the reins. (via Getcha Info!)
This morning's Financial Times carries the story "Viacom boasts of higher web traffic after YouTube clash" (p27; can't find the story on the web yet). The main points are: web traffic to MTV, Comedy Central, etc., rocketed last month (eg Comedy Central +90%; MTV + 50%); and Viacom's Q4 profits nearly quadrupled to $480 million. Viacom seems to be presenting this as a 'happy ending' to its YouTube battle, tough it's probably got more to do with Viacom's 300+ job cuts. The article also reminds us that Google paid $1.6 bn for YouTube.
So, last.fm will cost Viacom a few month's profits. I can imagine how Viacom can monetize the information they get from last.fm's data (people who like X, Y and Z, will probably like W; and if W doesn't exist yet, let's rustle one up).
Of course Viacom needs not to touch last.fm if it wants to keep that data accurate and valuable. Like you, I hope Viacom realises that.
For me, Last.fm is the best music discovery site out there - it's head, shoulders, chest, waist, hips and knees above Pandora for example (which didn't even recognise the first few bands I gave it; when it finally recognised one, the 'related-ness' of the music it played was pretty weak). But I need to get its client working on my phone, ...
Best wishes
Ivan
Posted by Ivan Uemlianin on March 02, 2007 at 04:20 AM EST #