Last FM and the Evolution of Radio

Last FM seems to be at the cutting edge of personalized, communitized Internet radio. And that's good if you like music and the journey of discovering new music.

A brief, incomplete history of Internet radio:

1. Spinner (later acquired by AOL) lets you listen to music online
2 Launch (later acquired by Yahoo!) lets you hand-create a personalized radio station.
3. Pandora uses music matching technology to play music that sounds like the stuff you like.
4. Last FM takes components from Pandora, myspace and wikipedia and mixes up a web community.



CBS bought Last FM earlier this year as a way to extend their strengths in radio into the online world. I'm still not all that bullish on CBS, which since being spun off from Viacom is the least diversified media company. But they have a dealmaker working on their behalf to become web players. Also, I don't think there is any money in online radio any more.


Having said that, Last FM is pretty good. It's the most evolved, most social of all online radio.

So I have brought my big headphones in to the office, and have tuned in to last FM. I'm plugging in artists I like and they take it from there, offering me more to listen to and links to artist communities (on last fm).

Below, a widget that's tracking what I've been listening to: