The quickly growing music social network Last.fm has been acquired by CBS for $280 million in an all-cash deal.
UK based Last.fm launched five years ago and has become a social networking favorite with 15 million active users. It has become a massive repository for music information (artist and song wikis, listening data from users, etc.). In the U.S., companies like Pandora, MOG and iLike all compete with some of Last.fm’s features, although none of those startups has built the basic social network/community of last.fm.
The deal sees Last.fm’s management team staying in place and the site maintaining a separate identity.
Last.fm has been an attractive takeover target for some time. CBS as a buyer though is surprising and is a sure sign that the media giant is getting serious about Web 2.0. CBS acquired video blog WallStrip for $5 million earlier this month, and has been on a bit of a buying spree lately after filling out the management team on the interactive side of the business last year.
Previous TechCrunch coverage here.
This certainly explains why Last.fm was a little slow to jump on the Facebook Applications bandwagon last week - they were understandably distracted.
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wow… the good times are back…
so is going the valuation between $15-$20 per subscriber?
Jeesh! What next? There are so many massive website acquisitions each day now.
So, CBS is on a acquiring spree.
Hmm…..wonder what this means for users of last.fm
Wow… this is huge. I wonder if it’ll be good for Last.fm in the long run. CBS is an American company and now Last.fm might fall under U.S. jurisdiction. Which means it could be in just as much trouble as Pandora.
Quincy has been very, very, busy.
This is way less than the Last.fm/Viacom $450 million rumor that was flaoting around.
Wow, I totally didn’t expect this. That’s a lot of cash, 280 million, to put out for a social network. But, they’re claiming 15 million active users, which is a lot of active members.
That’s certainly a lot less than what Viacom was reported to be offering. I’d still take the $280 million, though.
cheap
Hi,
Is anybody surprised about this? The London-based Last.fm recently secured deals with EMI and Warner to carry their music on members personalized on-site radio stations. Next stop will be the celebrity dress-up dolls, but I’m sure they will put up a decent cat fight.
Regards,
Coral
http://www.coralpoetry.blogspot.com
No more small business today -*-
Where is EUPOPE?
Wow, there will be just as big of a hangover this time as well.
poor thumbnail quality and a typo? Michael are you sleeping?
Last FM is a great service we use it in our site everyday. Also thanks the database and exceptional seo it always ranks top 5 for pretty much any music / artist search. That must guarentee a huge volume of inbound traffic
280 Mill …. - funding taken / etc …. Im sure the founders got their 20-30 million each.
- Good move to sell now … I wonder if they were even profitable …
is “Eupope” a joke. I don’t get it.
Does anyone else think that the strategy that CBS has been employing as of late with all these acquisitions is going to put them in the same position as Yahoo has been in over the past year or two - having so many properties and little to no integration between them and sometimes even competing products (ala Flickr/Yahoo Photos) - I’m thinking something along the lines of all of CBS’s recent distribution deals and their Innertube product.
There is a serious land grab going on right now - and CBS seems to be one of the few who understand the new media landscape, and how to get the most out of it.
I think the most important question is is how does CBS plan on integrating all of these recent acquisitions if at all?
Interesting buyer - but the transaction has been waiting to happen for ages. I am glad they are maintaining a separate brand/team/organisation for last.fm
CBS and Last FM, how that will fit together?
Interesting that Viacom is selling Famous Music publishing unit to Sony/ATV Music Publishing for $400M ($370M-cash/ $30M debt). Check it out on reuters.
Why don’t Viacom and Yahoo just merge.
Hey all,
You can read our take on today’s news on our new official blog here:
http://blog.last.fm/
Bad, bud everything change… (((
What a waste of money. What is CBS going to do with a free music site? They will not be able to recover that money with just ad revenues and they aren’t going to be able to conver it into a subscription site.
The logic of “build the userbase and sell before you make any serious money” is going to bite all the dumb acquirors in the butt.
Way to go CBS. You’re blowing up shareholder money faster than Paris Hilton in the nightclub business.
I see nothing good in being associated with CBS, especially for a great site like last.fm.
I never quite understood the name. I offered to sell them hear.fm but they declined.
Last.fm as in last place i.e the place everyone ends up
It’s just the last FM station you need to tune in. Just scrobble some songs and you’ll your personalized radio station for real
I’ve interviewed Mr Sticksel some months ago, he’s a real passionate man and a great visioneer, with really clear ideas about digital music. he said the same things about DRM that Jobs said, but some time before, just to say the level
I’ll publish his interview in english tomorrow. It’s old but still interesting
The acquisition works out to $18.66 per user. Much lower than other recent acquisitions. Does this mean that social networking users are worth less or music listeners are worth less or both?
Start-ups involved in either the social networking or music spaces must not be particularly happy about the valuation per user of Last.fm, even though the overall acquisition price was a big one.
Hear.fm yeah that sounds tons more appealing!
I just hope CBS won’t do to Last.fm what they did to Fender.
I think the price may have to do with the flat traffic over the past few months. Usually acquisition targets have solid growth right behind them. Even though Last.fm is shiny and cool the growth numbers look bad.
http://www.alexa.com/data/deta.....rl=last.fm
I’m sure their “internal growth numbers” looked great, all of those 3rd party services were “flawed,” right last.fm?
Why CBS? Because CBS has the only M&A guys who haven’t heard about Alexa
I’m not sure it’s a good news for users that Last.fm is bought by an US mass media…
Ron : don’t overlook the trafic of Last.fm’s local websites’ since they localised in over 10 languages in december 06 with specific urls (www.lastfm.de; http://www.lastfm.es; http://www.lastfm.fr …). Besides, Alexa is crap outside the US…
Lull,
On the “Alexa is crap” rant, you’re doing it wrong. It’s supposed to be “Alexa is crap INSIDE the US because it overrepresents Asia and Europe.”
Wow, this one caught me by suprise. I knew that Last.fm would be acquired, but didn’t expect CBS. Congrats to the owners.
Even though Last.fm is shiny and cool the growth numbers look bad.
Hard to monthly win 5k in the ranking if you’re already a year long consistently in the Top 500.
Bad growth? Check the Compete numbers.
It seems that perhaps an excessive amount of media outfits are being acquired and consolidated lately. I’m not surprised in the least that CBS would want in on the action.
Check out this list of recent acquisitions:
http://www.nonlinear.ca/blog/i.....-analysis/
Paying $18.66 per user seems high because I don’t think they can continue to grow under CBS. I know I don’t want a large corporation like CBS to have my music listening information. Good thing I moved to http://soundcrank.com.
Do they have any revenue?
Sure they have revenue! I pay them $6/month for a subscription for my girlfriend and I ($3 each). Lots of other people do too.
http://last.fm/subscribe
I hope they wont done bad things to one of my best music platform.I hope
great social network and that sure is alot of money i would have taken it for sure
i hope CBS doesnt ruin last.fm this could be a big step in either direction depending on how they manage this
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CBS is an American company and now Last.fm might fall under U.S. jurisdiction.