The big news today for Last.fm is that CBS has acquired them for 280 million! In their statement, CBS said that Last.fm fits well with their plan to attract a younger crowd (as though this isn’t obvious) to help transform CBS from a “content company” to an “audience company.” CBS has been on a roll lately by fully immersing themselves in Web 2.0 and all it has to offer.
If you haven’t paid much attention to Last.fm, it reminds me a lot of Pandora in that it ultimately provides users with a personalized streaming radio. They are different though, and both have a set of loyal users who use the services on a regular basis.
This leads me to to the following question: Which do you prefer and why? I know for non US users, the answer is simple. It was just a month ago that Pandora started to exclude non-US users from their service due to issues with the Digital Millennium Copyright act.
On a whole, I’d say Pandora is easier to use, however Last.fm has a social aspect that attracts people in. Each service is good in its own way whether it be the user interface, or selection of music, it just becomes a matter of preference.
Feel free to head on over to the forum to continue the discussion that Chris has already started on this topic.
Source: Reuters [via PCMag.com]
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Tags: Web Sites, Acquisition, Music, Pandora
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i dont use pandora because i dont have access to website for i am living out of U.S., S***t, then LAST is my favorite customizable radio station.
Regards,
xyber
I actually don’t use either service since I have an XM radio subscription. From what I’ve heard Last is a little better.
Pandora is easier to use but it also has a lot less functionalities. Last.fm has artists pages with images and wiki, so it is rapidly turning into a “wikipedia for music” (with samples or entire tracks you can listen to). And there’s the “events” section that lets you know if a band you like (based on your listening habits) gives a show near you (based on your geographic location), which is quite awesome. Even when Pandora was accessible outside US (since I live in Europe), I liked last.fm better, as it lets you freely browse its zillion pages (and it has lots of forums, groups and so on).