Last.fm founders Felix Miller, Richard Jones, and Martin Stiksel are leaving the music service they founded in 2002 and sold to CBS for $280 million in 2007.
In a notice on the site’s blog, Miller writes about the company’s humble beginnings and its journey to CBS, as well as its continued growth since the acquisition:
After two years running Last.fm within CBS we feel the time is right to begin the process of handing over the reins. This is the latest stage in a long journey for us founders, which began in a living room in East London in 2002, and took us to the headquarters of one of the biggest media companies in the world.
It’s been a privilege working with the incredible team here in our London office, and we’re extremely proud of what we’ve achieved together. Last.fm’s users have more than doubled in the last 12 months (we are now at an all-time high of 37.3M monthly unique visitors), and we’re confident the site will continue to go from strength to strength
The news comes soon after our reports that Last.fm’s parent company CBS may have transferred user data to the RIAA or record labels (an accusation they deny, though the issue remains cloudy). But it’s more likely that the timing is less sinister: Last.fm was acquired almost exactly two years ago, and it is common for earn-out deals to mandate a two year stay. It’s no secret that the employees at Last.fm and CBS haven’t always gotten along, and the founders may well be tired of living under their corporate overlords.
Smart!
Rats Leaving a Sinking Ship…
http://bit.ly/xtrsB
Yeah, that’s one of the problems with getting bought by a large company. Sure, you have that financial freedom, but you have to answer to someone else, and that’s not why you start a company.
http://last.fm/...er/magerleagues
I hope this doesn’t mean we’ll loose our Data.
I have put a lot of efforts to collect the data for me
My Last.fm Page:
http://www.last.fm/user/rungss
Does this mean they are leaving as soon as possible after some type of 2 year “stay with the company” term that was part of the CBS purchase?
whoops didn’t read all the article, ignore me.
whoops didn’t read closely enough, ignore me.
Why does Comscore only show a third of the 37M unique visitors? Are their data so bad?
Yup, their data is horrible.
Knowing when to walk is an amazing talent.
Infighting and bickering tend to disturb creative human being. There is more innovation where that came from. Many thanks goes out to the brilliant founders.
The shine started to fade as soon as they sold to CBS and started handing out our user data. I dropped it then and have never looked back. Once the media giants get involved the $#it goes downhill fast. If they haven’t worked out a pay model or gone out of business in the next two years, I would be very surprised.
Except for paying royalty payments to Sound Exchange, there’s absolutely no reason (legal or otherwise) to hand out user data. Do you have any facts to support this?
Honestly, I think this is a harsh rumor and people are just trying to hate on CBS Radio.
I find it very disturbing that the corporate elite keep gobbling up small businesses, then have the balls to ask for bail-outs and claim they’re too big to fail. This is Fascism! The only thing they’re good at is counting money, regulating freedom, and ruining the American Dream. (or should i say nightmare)?
I’ve never met a group of founders that I respect less.
That is quite a harsh statement. Why? if I may ask.
Well… the discussion about what last.fm has done with users outside some countries is well known… First, they take advantage of user’s collaborations from all around the world, but someday, they decide to charge a fee, no matter if we all made last.fm what it is and gave them lots on money. Some say it’s silly to think about that, ’cause it’s a business but I don’t. For some reason, lots of people were angry… see the graphic. What happenned on march?
The “user collaborations” taken “advantage of” power Recommendations, Charts, Neighbors, etc – all things that are still free _everywhere_.
The fee is only for streaming audio, which is not user-generated.
Last.fm is becoming US/UK/DE only and fast. It won’t be long when the rest of the world is shut out from your club entirely. You’re on a shinking ship.
http://bit.ly/Md7t
wow now I understand why so many people hate you, you are quite arrogant and rude.
In the immortal words of Leo Laporte..”Screw you Mike Arrington!”
It’s good to know you’re consistently a prick, maybe those threats were deserved.
Threats are cowardly and wrong. Mike has made a harsh statement which he should explain to avoid misconceptions..
Threats make the internet go round, without them the internet wouldn’t be half of what it is now. Threats are more a statement of disgust than actual threats, who has ever actually followed through with threats? Nobody.
“…who has ever actually followed through with threats? Nobody.”
That is a preposterous statement. History is full of terrorists and crazy people who did, indeed, follow through with their insane intentions. That is a cop-out of an excuse for exploiting the First Amendment. If someone threatens me or my family, you darn well better believe I’m going to take it seriously. If you threaten people, you should never be surprised at how they respond. That is simply a juvenile attempt to excuse people who are not intelligent enough to find words or legal means to address their concerns, problems and complaints. There is no place for threats, cursing and insults in intelligent discourse. Please note I said ‘intelligent’ discourse. Threatening someone does not show brain power. It says, “I can’t outsmart you, so I’ll beat you up.” For lack of a more ‘intelligent’ way to say it, that is a cowardly, bonehead-ed comment.
“…who has ever actually followed through with threats? Nobody.”
are you insane?
Guys, there is no need to get personal with Michael for expressing an opinion. Techcrunch is a blog based on news and editorial which is subjective. If you have such a hard time with his opinions maybe find another blog to read.
I have worked with the guys at last.fm on and off for the last few years and love the site and I hope that it continues to grow!
Ah poor baby Mike last.fm founders won’t play ball with him so he throws his toys out of the pram…
no. what’s sad is that so many people just blindly believe them.
I’d believe a company which I’ve been using and supporting for years over some crappy tech blog that stands to gain from publishing ‘controversial’ shit about a large company. Not to this day have you provided any real evidence to back up your claims, you constantly say “we have proof!” “We have the emails!” and yet you never show them. Blank out the names, whatever, but until you prove it I’m going to continue to not believe you and I’m sure the majority of readers here share the same attitude. Not that this matters to you, the internet is full of sheep who’ll believe whatever you say, so even without evidence you can easily damage a company.
Why, because their story is exactly the kind that cause the New York Times to call you out on rumor-mongering?
http://www.tech...ess-journalism/
> ———- Forwarded message ———-
> From: RJ
> Date: Thu, Apr 30, 2009 at 4:03 AM
> Subject: RE: Heard you were leaving Last.fm
> To: Owen Thomas
>
>
> Hi Owen,
> Not sure why you heard that, it’s not true!
> There’s loads of stuff still to accomplish here, i’m far from finished
> with last.fm.
> Cheers,
> RJ
>
> > —–Original Message—–
> > From: Owen Thomas [mailto:owen@vxxxx.com]
> > Sent: 30 April 2009 00:32
> > To: richard@xxxx.com
> > Subject: Heard you were leaving Last.fm
> >
> > Richard,
> >
> > Heard you were leaving Last.fm. Do you have time to chat? If you’d like to
> > call, I’m at +1 415 229 xxxx, or on AIM as xxxx.
> >
> > Thanks,
> >
> > Owen
> >
> > Owen Thomas
> > Valleywag
You seriously expect RJ to tell _valleywag_ he’s leaving over a month before actually announcing it?
yes. the way to handle this is not to respond. instead, he lied on the record. you just don’t do that. no one does.
Why is this a lie?
A white lie yes, but not an outright lie.
one can achieve a lot in a month.
The email is over a month and a half ago, well before you started with all your unfounded allegations about the RIAA. Perhaps he changed his mind about staying on just recently!? Accusing him of lying based on this is way out of line.
That is a rather harsh assessment. Is there a link to a previous story or some other color you can give there? I met them while interviewing for a senior position there and found them to be likable and intelligent.
they are likable and intelligent. and they also lie a lot.
Mike, I’ve tried to trace back your hatred of Last.fm via your posts on this blog, but I can’t find the exact moment it began festering. Where’s the beef? I’d love to hear the full story here.
just when i found them to be lying, repeatedly, about just about everything.
(by the way, full disclaimer, I work at Last.fm)
Again, I’d like to see concrete evidence of this that goes beyond a refusal to provide you, or other bloggers with confidential information before making a public announcement (possibly even before a decision has been made). I don’t consider withholding sensitive information lying.
At this point you just come across as bitter at being left out of the loop, and to be honest I’m not surprised given the negative spin you put on everything that comes out of Last.fm.
left out of what loop?
In December we were accused of playing cheerleader to last.fm, and have generally been positive towards the company. after our first post on this debacle we heard from a couple of people that Felix didn’t like us because we were too positive on imeem and myspace music last year, but since he stopped talking to me, i haven’t had a chance to figure out if that’s true or not.
so i don’t think we’ve been left out of any loops, and i don’t think our last.fm posts over the years have been negative at all until recently.
the email above shows RJ was willing to lie about his leaving last.fm a month and a half ago. the right way to handle that email inquiry was to not respond at all. but he did respond, and he lied. that’s not withholding sensitive information, it’s lying, on the record. now the founders are all leaving and it’s clear that its not just about vesting – it’s about a deep hatred with CBS.
add to that the fact that i have, in my inbox, emails from a senior last.fm employee basically admitting that our second post was exactly accurate.
so excuse me if i kind of think there’s a serious amount of truth to our posts.
i don’t have to provide concrete evidence of anything. i report what we have and the world keeps spinning. if we get more information, we’ll post it. if the last.fm employee gives us permission to post the emails, we will. but until then, why don’t you just stop with the personal attacks. It’s not like i gain anything by all this. we’re just writing what we believe to be the absolute truth. and you are either full of it or don’t know what actually happened.
well… I agree… What happenned with last.fm was a betrayal to users… and they cheated on us with freedom masks…
TC is the blog I disrespect the most. How is that?
Jesus Mike, you’re such a cunt. RJ is one of the best people I know.
yeah, no personal attacks whatsoever from last.fm employees.
Last.fm has been (and still is) one of the biggest startup in the web-scene to come out of London. It has basically consecrated the Old Street area as the miniscule-silicon-valley of London.
It’s always hard once you have tried a startup to go back to the big corporate environment, almost impossible, and I totally understand what they feel it’s time to leave.
Wonder what they are going to get up to next?!
Somehow I don’t like people using the phrase ‘call it quits’ when ‘quit’ would do just fine. Unless you intended the ambiguity of ‘getting even’ here?
Anyhow, any word on what’s next for them?
So they figured out that now that they are owned by CBS, they no longer have the control they thought they had and are leaving. They are a little slow on the uptake I guess.
Well all there is to say is: RIP last.fm
I hope the last.fm team will get back together and start another project.
This time I hope they make sure that they don’t sell it.
Congrats to the founders and the core team for creating a great service that I still use after years.
“It’s no secret that the employees at Last.fm and CBS haven’t always gotten along”
Any evidence to back this up? I’m curious.
yeah. everyone at last.fm and cbs that i talk to. you must, at the very least, tell me that you understand that the protection of sources doesn’t allow me to name names. but i think if you read the guardian article by carr, you’ll see i’m not the only one that hears this.
look, i write a story that’s accurate and you guys attack me personally. then the mob comes after me. do you think that it’s pleasant for me to do this? do i have a track record of making claims like this that turn out to be false? no. and no. maybe i’m actually writing something i believe.
Correction; You write a story based on information you’ve been given.
That’s fine, but to claim it’s accurate really requires something to back it up. That’s what some people take issue with.
you’re right. but one thing is clear. people inside last.fm and cbs think it was accurate, too.
Don’t play the victim Mike, I’m not attacking you personally, I’m questioning you professionally, just as you are the founders of Last.fm.
As someone once said “You know how this game works” (that may have been a misquote or taken out of context)
You don’t have to provide evidence, and I totally understand you’re protecting your sources, and I also accept that you probably believe your story. But until you have anything to back it up, it’s just hearsay, and the reliability of your source remains in question.
but i do have “anything to back it up.” thus the stories. and i didn’t just magic up these emails from last.fm’ers saying our story was accurate. at the very, very least, the team had no clue what really happened while they were publicly denying everything. and i think i’ve also shown that RJ is willing to lie on the record to a blogger if it suits his needs. Honestly, there’s a a lot of smoke here for any casual observer. and there’s a lot more than smoke in my inbox.
at the end of the day we have no incentive to make stuff up and then have to deal with death threats. last.fm certainly has a reason to lie.
Even if you’re telling the truth about your sources, that doesn’t say anything about their trustworthiness. We only have your trust in them by proxy. And given the personal nature of your vendetta against Last.fm (c.f. http://www.tech...comment-2775987) I’m not surprised your trustworthiness is being called into question.
It’s disingenuous to claim you have nothing to gain from publishing controversial stories based on anonymous and unverified sources that are guaranteed to provoke outrage. Techcrunch is a business that makes money from advertising through page views.
There’s a lot of smoke here indeed. The willing blindness of all these sheeple really amazes me, and I’m a cynic to begin with. Yes, if you examine it as a matter of incentive, it certainly seems Last.fm has more to gain by lying than TechCrunch has by making up some story out of thin air.
Now that we have a founder on record as lying a month before he left the project, well, I think that bolsters TC’s case. What exactly is the reason to believe Last.fm, again?
I would love to be a fly on the wall at Last.fm. Rats are leaving the shinking ship and other Last.fm employees are running around like headles chickens. It must be hard to admit that they were lied to by their bosses pretty much on everything and all they can do is come to TC and went their frustration on Arrington. Poor boys. Paranoia is a bitch.
I guess you’re the guy who drew the rats cartoon on the last.fm blog right? Some people on the forum accused Arrington: http://www.last...1130/1#f9697976
Funny stuff!
It was not me. I can’t draw.
http://bit.ly/Md7t
To some extent, i think last.fm came good when pandora decided to lock it’s IP to non-US listeners, and I’m still pissed about that because for what it did, it did very well, and so did this site.
I’ve seen many people say “I’m stopping using this because it now has a bigger corporate parent” and that’s totally BS and snobbery, because if it does what you want then once the data-sharing issues have been resolved then there’s no reason NOT to keep using it.
They made the business the success it is, word-of-mouth certainly helped, so good luck to them [the founders] to walk away knowing it’s in safe hands – now go and create a new and completely different web 2.0 service.
founder always right. acquisition sometimes bad. all the time is bad.
mike, i got your back bro
Soon libre.fm (in these days is in still in alpha) will be a perfect open source alternative for Last.FM: streaming in .ogg, REAL support to unsigned artists, same features Last.FM got (and much more). Even the graphics will be done with Gimp/Inkscape on Linux: it’s a radical position leading – hopefully – to a much more free platform than the greedy CBS social network.
Keep an eye on this project: suscription are opened, more than 10.000 people are already scrobbling on Libre.fm.
It’s june.
That email was sent in April.
Lots can happen in 2 months.
Why do you think dude is lieng?
I’m really hoping last.fm doesn’t go the way of Nullsoft/Winamp after the AOL buyout (but it looks as if it is, shame) I’ve used Last.fm for years and it’s still a good site, it’s just a question of who takes over/gets parachuted in by CBS (delete as necessary) and what they do with it…
Speaking of libre.fm, from personal experience I’ve found that I’ve switched to the little guy (fb2k – it’s NOT open source) or open source (MPC, VLC, Amarok on Linux) from Winamp instead of the big boys’ players. Here’s hoping I’m not really pushed into doing the same.