Last.fm
Web 2.0 breakthrough makes millionaires…
It all started with a computer science degree…
Richard Jones (RJ), one of the co-founders of Last.fm, became a millionaire last year (2007). While studying a computer science degree at Southampton University, he developed ‘Audioscrobbler’ which is the software that allows Last.fm to build a profile of a user’s musical taste by recording all the songs users listen to on their computer.
Users create their own profiles and then start building a profile of their music tastes by tracking what they listen to through their computer, including iTunes and Last.fm’s own media player. Last.fm then suggests similar music, based on the listening habits of its users processed by its ‘scrobbling’ technology.
In May 2007 the site was sold to CBS, netting Richard Jones £19.25 million. He is still only 26!
Last.fm is also a first for advertising…
A new type of web advertising will be making its debut on Last.fm; it interacts with the site on which it appears, for example an advert displays an image of a mobile phone handset which changes according to what the Last.fm user is doing. If someone is listening to music then the phone would appear to play a….. .track, showing off its MP3 player.
Credit graphic: Bramus - Flickr.com
Key facts
- When Last.fm started, the 4 site programmers lived in tents on the roof of the office.
- Now Last.fm is a global music service available in 12 languages.
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