Last.fm partners up with Spotify to offer on demand plays

Spotify Last.fmGreat news! Last.fm partners up with Spotify to again offer on-demand plays:

We’ve teamed up with Spotify to bring their entire catalogue, on demand, to the world’s leading music recommendation service.

About two years ago, Last.fm had dropped their on-demand plays, to “focus on the features that make Last.fm unique — scrobbling, personalised radio, and being the online home for your music taste”, or, put differently, CBS wanted to cut the costs so they decided to save the royalties.

Well I’m glad they’ve finally come up with this solution! The integration works pretty well, too: if you hit the play button on last.fm, Spotify is opened in the background to play the track. Smooth. What’s great, too, ist that on a “Top Tracks” list, such as the one below, the entire list is put in a Spotify-playlist.

PlayOnLastFM

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last.fm: Annual loss increases to £5m in 2010

Bad news from my second-favourite online music service: According to The Register, last.fm saw an annual loss of £5m in 2010:

According to the company’s accounts, Last.fm’s losses increased in 2010, the last year for which records are publicly available. The annual loss grew from £2.89m in 2009 to over £5m in 2010. That was on a turnover of just £7.992m in 2010 (2009: £7.283m). Administrative expenses increased from £2.95m to over £8m.”
(www.theregister.co.uk)

Unfortunately The Register did not specify their sources, so we’re left to wonder what exactly “According to the company’s accounts” means.

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