CBS launches on-demand music service on Last fm

Thursday, January 24, 2008

Want to legally hear your favorite artist while you browse on the net? It will be possible thanks to the latter version of Last.fm. Today CBS announced the launch of an on-demand music service on Last.fm, a network acquired by the company last year. The online radio site will be able to offer on-demand music also to non registered users that will visit Last.fm.

It will be possible because the on-demand music service will host advertising on the website. The user will be able to listen to any song they want because of the great work CBS has done with music labels and advertisers. The labels were still able to put a condition on the on-demand music service though. Last.fm will let the user listen to a single track only three times. If the user really likes the song Last.fm will provide links to buy it on other services like iTunes or Amazon.com

As for the artists that will be available, the on-demand music service already has deals with four major music labels bringing the number of tracks to 3.5 million. Last.fm will also be useful for independents that will receive a share of the advertisement revenue that their songs produce.

In addition to the possibility to listen to on-demand music without having to register, Last.fm has also simplified the music request process. The user just has to enter the name of the artist you want to listen to and pick your favorite songs. Once the song picked has started Last.fm will simply display an ad on the screen.