TechFold - Bold tech & web commentary

Bold tech & web commentary

TechFold is technology discussion, commentary, reviews, and opinions from well outside the valley. There's no koolaid to drink here, and TechFold is not in SL, or on Twitter.

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

Hitwise Acquired by Experian, $240 million in cash

Hitwise has been bought by general analytical service provider Experian (12k ee’s, 3.1bn revenue). News from Marketing Pilgrim, via TechMeme. Incidentally, Hitwise has an interesting approach to collecting stats, gathering metrics directly from ISP’s:

Hitwise has developed proprietary software that Internet Service Providers (ISPs) use to analyze website usage logs created on their network. The anonymous data sent to Hitwise from the ISPs include a range of industry standard metrics relating to the viewing of websites including page requests, visits and average visit length.

Hitwise also combines this rich ISP data with a worldwide opt-in panel to overlay demographic, lifestyle and transactional behavior across the thousands of websites that are reported on every day.

A great service (though I haven’t used it myself) built on top of a solid technology base and business model = big sale. Congrats to Hitwise!

experian, hitwise stats