James Delahunty
30 May 2007 19:10
CBS Corp announced on Wednesday that it has bought Last.fm, a social networking site constantly growing in popularity, in a deal worth $280 million. CBS said the service has over 15 million active users in more than 200 different countries and will fit well with its aim of attracting younger viewers. As part of the deal, the Last.fm team will continue to run the service work with CBS and will apply their community-building and technology expertise to extend CBS businesses online.
Last.fm's music recommendation system has been particularly successful. The site monitors music habits of its users and automatically recommends music from users that have similar tastes. It has stuck content deals with Warner Music Group and EMI Group to use their music catalogs. The service originally launched in 2002.
"Last.fm is one of the most well-established, fastest-growing online community networks out there," Leslie Moonves, President and Chief executive of CBS said. "Their demographics play perfectly to CBS's goal to attract younger viewers and listeners across our businesses. Last.fm adds a terrific interactive extension to all of our properties and also is a huge step in CBS Corporation's overall strategy of expanding our reach online to transition from a content company into an audience company."
Source:
Yahoo