Mashable - The Social Media Guide - Latest Comments in Warner Has Lost Its Senses In Last.FM Split

Re: Warner Has Lost Its Senses In Last.FM Split

haynes_dave — Mon, 09 Jun 2008 05:39:51 -0000

this seems a shame. I wonder how much Warner's involvement with Imeem has to do with this?!

Personally, this won't affect the value I get from Last.fm in anyway whatsoever. As long as I can still scrobble any Warner-owned content and use that data with other sites then it will still be one of the primary web services that I use.

Re: Warner Has Lost Its Senses In Last.FM Split

SocialMediaMojo — Sun, 08 Jun 2008 11:06:16 -0000

Oh sure, pandora merely came up because it's the other somewhat established site doing the music recommendations. There are many more that are less well known - finetune, jango etc and even imeem has a recommendation system, but that isn't heavily featured ont its interface.

Bias isn't immediately bad, just because someone has a bias doesn't mean that their ideas are wrong.

I can see your argument that even though imeem is more popular and has a larger catalog than last.fm that larger catalog dilutes the listener base at the same time making the 'bigger is better' argument somewhat moot. Myspace, Facebook and youtube are also huge sites but not focussed on music.

Re: Warner Has Lost Its Senses In Last.FM Split

Andrew Dubber — Sun, 08 Jun 2008 05:20:54 -0000

@SocialMediaMojo My 'what music websites should I be on?' blog mini-series isn't necessarily in descending order of popularity. The point of it is to alert musicians and music businesses to opportunities that they can make the most of online.

My first recommendation was Wikipedia. I'm not sure where that shows up in the Compete list of music sites... :) I guess the point is to look a little beyond the immediately obvious.

Having said that, you may be right about a bias on my part towards Last.fm - but that's because as a music consumer, and as someone who professionally advises musicians and music companies how to make the most of the online environment, I've found the site to be useful in disproportionate measure to its popularity.

Social music discovery understands how people make meaning out of music, how they like to share and connect with people through music. Like Mog (though to a lesser degree), Last.fm appeals to the music hobbyist - someone who doesn't just listen to and buy music, but for whom music consumption is a significant and important pastime. These tend to be people who are more active in their music discovery - and who tend to spend more of their disposable income on music.

As jnp suggests - these active music consumers who have their ear open for the next thing to engage in an economic exchange with just won't encounter the Warner catalogue.

I'm not opposed to Warner trying to negotiate a better deal - though it is baffling to me that a record company should get to do this on a case-by-case basis - but "We have a popular music catalogue" isn't the only trump card on the table here.

"We have a large and engaged group of music consumers with spending power" is a fairly good response.

Warner seem to have taken their ball and gone home, not realising that means they lose the game.

Oh - and as a sidebar, Pandora's not similar to Last.fm. The ways in which they recommend music are virtually opposites. One is about the musicological characteristics of the tunes themselves - the other is about what people actually do. Prescriptive versus descriptive.

I like them both - but I have a preference.

Re: Warner Has Lost Its Senses In Last.FM Split

AntiArrington — Sun, 08 Jun 2008 02:10:28 -0000

As a consumer, I really enjoy last.fm, but their business practices leave something to be desired. They has come under fire from music blogs and labels of all sizes about even paying the minimal royalties they do owe.

To come into US compliance for the CBS deal, they paid into SoundExhange (the streaming media royalty collection agency) at the "small webcaster rate." I believe the sum they paid for millions of streams up to that time was the generous sum of around $15,000.

Just because labels are getting paid something, doesn't mean they should roll over for a bad deal, or leverage catalog assets to try to negotiate a better one.

Re: Warner Has Lost Its Senses In Last.FM Split

SocialMediaMojo — Sun, 08 Jun 2008 01:50:30 -0000

Apple could certainly benefit, but, CBS got there first.

Instead apple could look at Pandora which has a similar recommendation system. However, I'm trying to think of companies that Apple has acquired, and I'm coming up blank. I don't think Apple likes to buy this kind of technology, rather it would build it in house.

Re: Warner Has Lost Its Senses In Last.FM Split

jnp — Sat, 07 Jun 2008 20:28:40 -0000

Totally agree with Dubber two comments ago.

I am a last.fm fan and use it like one would use the radio. So no Warner means really nothing from my point of view. I still ove last.fm -- in fact am listening to it right now, it's the music in the living room as my wife gives the baby a bath.

So I just won't hear, love and possibly buy Warner music. Smart? Nope. One would think by 2008 record companies would "get it"...

Re: Warner Has Lost Its Senses In Last.FM Split

SocialMediaMojo — Sat, 07 Jun 2008 19:50:43 -0000

"Funny thing is, I thinking about writing my next "What websites should musicians be on?" blog post about Last.fm."

but it's only part two, last I looked last.fm was ranked #11 on compete's list of popular music sites. I believe your priorities show an irrational favoritism towards last.fm

See that's the thing, last.fm isn't hugely popular, there are many more popular sites which Warner would have to think harder about cutting off. But last.fm is small enough that Warners isn't losing a whole lot of revenue while using this hardball negotiation tactic. Besides, it'll still be getting payouts for the radio streams, which make up a larger proportion of last.fm's output.

I'm pretty sure that last.fm will meet Warner's desired rates and things will be back to normal. Last.fm is in a crowded market right now and if it's missing one of the big labels it'll have a knock on effect.

Re: Warner Has Lost Its Senses In Last.FM Split

Andrew Dubber — Sat, 07 Jun 2008 19:27:13 -0000

No - I think Paul has it right. Investments and vested interests aside, this is simply a dumb decision for Warner. And not just 'mistaken dumb' - this is willful stupidity.

Listen - it's really simple:

1) There are people who use and love Last.fm.

2) Last.fm will pay you money when those people listen to your music.

3) It costs you nothing to have that music on Last.fm

4) Taking that music away will not affect those people in the least, because they will simply listen to other music that they can listen to on Last.fm.

5) Choosing to receive NO money from Last.fm when you can't get MORE money from Last.fm is just petulant and worse than shortsighted.

You don't make money by setting yourself up in an antagonistic position to these sorts of organisations anymore. Didn't you get the memo about creative alliances and strategic partnering?

If I was signed to your label or a shareholder of your company, I'd be screaming at you: "why are you giving my money away?!"

Funny thing is, I thinking about writing my next "What websites should musicians be on?" blog post about Last.fm.

This makes my mind up for me.

Re: Warner Has Lost Its Senses In Last.FM Split

alan — Sat, 07 Jun 2008 18:23:32 -0000

paul-- you shouldn't rant unless you know what you're talking about.

while imeem and others are using free-music-steaming as their raison de etre, last.fm is using its stream-any-song-3-times offering as an upsell for its premium subscription offering.

if that subscription service isn't attracting enough consumers to cover its costs, the fault lies with last.FM and CBS, not the labels.

last.fm is owned by a major media company with more than enough resources to pay for its service; the time for playing the poverty-stricken startup is one year and $180 million too late.

if last.fm and co. can't pay market rates, then it's too bad for them. don't blame CBS.

Re: Warner Has Lost Its Senses In Last.FM Split

SocialMediaMojo — Sat, 07 Jun 2008 18:18:59 -0000

What you're missing is that warner talks about imeem as an investment, which means they have equity in the company. Same is true for myspace music. Warner wins when imeem grows, so it would be logical to use their music to make imeem a more attractive destination than last.fm

Plus, imeem is now way more popular than last.fm, so it's not like they're shutting down their flagship deal. Last.fm's on demand music hasn't been the huge driver of user interest that they were proposing.