Duke Listens!: Visit my main blog at MusicMachinery.com

The recent acquisition of last.fm by CBS has me a bit worried.  Last.fm is a totally cool company that really gets the whole social web thing (in fact they are one of the defining web 2.0 sites out there). They harness the wisdom of the crowds to hook people up with content.  They have amassed a set of taste data that they use to give music listeners high quality recommendations. They use social tags to give new ways for users to explore, browse and discover music.  They've provided web services to let others access and use this data in all sorts of novel ways.  Even their name "last.fm" indicates that they are the new way of doing things, they are the last radio station you'll ever need.  

So when I heard that CBS was buying last.fm I had some very mixed feelings.  Certainly, I'm very happy for the folks at Last.fm.  They've done something special and deserve to be rewarded (and I hope all the money isn't going to the investors).  However, I'm more than a bit worried that CBS, with its old-media ways may screw things up for last.fm.  We've seen it with web 2.0 acquisitions before, even with companies like Yahoo! that should understand these things. Remember when Yahoo! purchased Flickr  and they almost destroyed the community by pissing off their users?   Social web sites like Flickr and last.fm are all about the community, and it doesn't take much to piss off a community.  Luckily CBS says that they'll leave Martin, Felix and RJ in charge at last.fm - nevertheless I worry that the old media guys will do something stupid with last.fm.  Some advice to CBS. Please don't:

• Surround last.fm with ads and promos such that it is hard to find the site. (like you see at Yahoo! Music)
• Disable or cripple their webservices
  
• Eliminate ties to other sites such as Amazon and Youtube that may be competing with CBS
  
• Require legal approvals anytime they want to push a new feature  (I've always been amazed at how fast RJ can push out new web services features).
• Piss off your users by doing stupid things like changing their logins or spamming them with ads
  
• Mix artist promotion with artist recommendation
  
• Switch the focus from music to video

Please do leave Martin, Felix and RJ  in charge and let them do what they do best, which is to make a really cool music 2.0 community. I've heard from folks inside last.fm say that they have been ensured that last.fm will continue on the path it is on.  RJ posts in the brand new Last.fm blog that:

• The Last.fm team stays put in London.
• We will continue to execute our world domination plans – our focus is still music and the surrounding ecosystem. The founders (myself included) are still at the helm.
• We have more resources at our disposal now, and more clout when it comes to negotiating licensing deals etc.
• OH NOES UR SELLIN MY SCROBBLES!!1!! — Don’t panic. The openness of our platform and our approach to privacy won’t change.

That is good news.  I hope it is true.