Hey, you guys remember me telling you about how the music industry is working it's butt off to prolong their own deaths, and will eventually capitulate to the demands of users?
Good article. It reminds me of a story told by an EMI executive. I'm sorry I don't have the link.
The EMI guy had been in a focus group, discussing music trends with a bunch of teenagers. At the end of the session, he thanked them for their input and pointed to a pile of CDs, saying they could help themselves to any they liked.
To his astonishment none of the youths were interested in physical CDs anymore. The EMI guy said that was they day when he realised that the business model had changed forever.
I think the simple solution that they should go with is one used by other sites in the same situation. If someone comes in from outside the currently available advertising areas, ie, if they come from Italy, but Last.FM is only advertising in German, then simply swap in ads from Google's Adsense. Adsense is EVERYWHERE, and thus, if they can't earn money from previously purchased ads through their normal channels, they can just fall back on Adsense where and when necessary and the rest will take care of itself.
True, but the problem with relying on advertising revenue is that in recessions, people are less likely to buy things, making advertisements more pointless.
Your free trial to Last.fm Radio has ended. Subscribe to continue listening to non-stop, personalised radio.
Rest in peace, vagalume.
This thread does not presently apply those of us living in the United States. I am not a paid subscriber and yet am enjoying music from my Valgalume player as I write this post!
Why this change? And why so quickly?
Why it was free before, now it costs?
Ah well, I'll use xmms to listen to online radios then.. remove vagalume, a shortcut and that's it.
Bye bye lastfm
I dissaggree!
LastFM ROCKs...AND i would pay for that services.
The similarity functions works like a charm.
If you enter a artist, everything else sounds like that artist.
I LOVE listing to my loved tracks at home....at work I listen to other stations and add loved tracks.
And it doesn't play the same song over and over again.
not like yahoo.
not like sirius nor XM.
This thread does not presently apply those of us living in the United States. I am not a paid subscriber and yet am enjoying music from my Valgalume player as I write this post!
Correct. last.fm employs user discrimination by country (determined by their IP address). People in the USA, UK and Germany need not pay (yet). Everybody else, ~50$ per year.
