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I’m becoming a curmudgeon

…and its because of stories like the acquisition of Last.fm by CBS. There was a time when companies either adapted, or went out of business: it was a good thing, like the process of ecological succession that keeps forests healthy - old businesses made way for new, the rotting remains of their business models providing intellectual nutrients for their replacements.

Now, it seems like old giants are content to buy relevance instead of re-inventing themselves. The game changed under them with the introduction of the internet: no matter, they’ll just spend their way into the new game.

The problem I see is one of memetic infection. Old companies with deep pockets impose old ideas and business models on new industries. Is Last.fm more likely to cave to things like the Copyright Royalty Board as a part of CBS? Yes. Does wrapping new ideas in a layer of old money ultimately stifle innovation? Yes. Sorry, Sam - even if CBS keeps their hands off, that’s not the same as being independent.

Hear2.0 is convinced that the move heralds the future of personalized radio. Jarrett House agress. I’m not sold: As Praized Blog notes, CBS is claiming that Last.fm will maintain its independence, and it was bought for its community not its technology or data. Plus: I don’t have faith in CBS’s ability to execute.

Nick O’Neill at the Webpreneur wonders why a record label didn’t snap up last.fm. IMHO, its because record labels are afraid of promoting music online where P2P downloads are a click away. Plus, would a label pay to buy a service that promotes music from other labels too?

Personally, I wonder why Last.fm wasn’t nabbed by either Google, or Experian.

cbs, experian, google, last.fm, lastfm pandora

5 Responses to “I’m becoming a curmudgeon”

Sam Harrelson | May 30th, 2007 at 11:16 am

Rod-

Can’t say that I disagree with you. The long term implications for Last.fm’s identity seem bleak.

I feel let down because I do have so much of my own music and listening data invested in the platform and now that data belongs to CBS, Viacom, MTV, etc etc etc.

Nice post and great blog-
Sam
Rod | May 30th, 2007 at 11:26 am

Thanks for stopping by, Sam, and thanks for the kind words! I’m not a last.fm user, but I can understand where you’re coming from.

Its a weird situation out there right now: paradigm shifting industry changes seem to be almost impossible to do as the entrenched paradigms are over funded and co-opt new ones; the impact of these circumstances on long-term economic health sounds like a good graduate project for an economics masters student or something.
David Hendricks | June 2nd, 2007 at 8:45 pm

It’s interesting what you said about old money buying innovation. I’ve recently read a blog, (I can’t for the life of me remember where, Damn!) that actually promoted that idea as an option to in-house innovation. The idea is to look for any company on the cutting edge of whatever you do and let them do the legwork and promotion. If they fail, no loss for you, if they succeed buy them up. No need to spend your own R&D money on an idea that might not work. It’s apparently a calculated strategy now. Of course young hungry entrepreneurs will now calculate to get the interest of big money instead of coming up with new models, so we’ll probably be right back where we started.
Dave Navarro goes indie. — Project-D | June 3rd, 2007 at 9:39 am

[…] notice. While this is probably the first of many rats abandoning the RIAA ship, It reminds me of a post I read yesterday. It’s the strategy more and more big companies are adopting. Let the little […]
Rod | June 4th, 2007 at 11:33 am

Hey David - sounds like one of those paper-strategies designed to mollify shareholders looking for “innovation!” more than to actually create an innovative company.

Certainly its hard to create a new culture in an organization with any history, but there must be some precedents out there.