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Last.FM launches free global music service across partner sites

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Last.fmannounced a new initiative called “Last.fm in a Box” with its key partners.

“Last.fm in a Box” allows partners to offer their users free access to Last.fm’s industry-defining and world-leading personalized streaming radio services direct from the partners web site.

The service is dubbed “Last.fm in a Box” because it’s a complete “soundtrack for the Web” experience for users—featuring millions of tracks from Last.fm’s unparalleled music catalogue. Based on the open platform of Last.fm, partner sites can adopt “Last.fm in a Box” simply, easily and quickly. The service will be ad-supported allowing brands and sponsors the opportunity to reach millions of highly engaged music fans across the Web beyond the Last.fm site.

“Last.fm In a Box” will be made available to multiple online platforms, including Bebo, Billboard.com, Break Media, CBS Television Stations, CBS Affiliates, eMusic, Frengo, Gigya, iGoogle, Live Nation, Meebo, MP3.com, Netvibes, Ning, Pageflakes, Photobucket, Piczo, Six Apart, Stardoll, WAYN.com and WordPress.com.

Originally posted on June 4, 2008 @ 11:18 pm

Last.fm announces exclusive global premiere of new Portishead album

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5349194.jpgLast.fm announced that Portishead’s long-awaited new album, Third, will be made exclusively available on the site, in its entirety, for free from April 21, a week before its official release.

Third is the Bristol band’s first studio album in 11 years, and each of its 11 tracks will be made available for free, full-length, on-demand streaming on Last.fm for 7 days leading up the official release on April 28.

This is the first time that Last.fm, which offers free access to the largest licensed catalogue of music on the Web, has collaborated with an individual artist to exclusively premier an album before its official release. All of Portishead’s previous albums are also available to stream in full.

Originally posted on April 14, 2008 @ 12:12 pm

Last.fm partners with Mozilla Labs to award best music extension category for “Extend Firefox 3” contest

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Last.fm is sponsoring a new music category in Mozilla’s Extend Firefox 3 contest. As part of the contest, which encourages web developers to create innovative extensions or add-ons for the forthcoming major update to the Firefox Web browser, Last.fm will be judging entries and will award the best music-related extension entry.

The winner will be flown to the Last.fm office in London to meet the team behind the world’s fastest-growing free music website; will attend a Last.fm/Presents live event as a guest of Last.fm; and will also receive a Logitech Squeezebox network music player.

Last.fm is one of the major resources developers have at their disposal when building music applications and add-ons. The site offers a wealth of music-related assets – music streams, listening charts, artist information – and an established free and open API and webservice framework to build from. .

Originally posted on April 2, 2008 @ 11:00 am

Last.fm debuts applications gallery, adds 19 million to user base

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build.pngLast.fm launched a new section called “Build.last.fm”, a gallery promoting the growing number of Last.fm third-party applications that extend the Last.fm experience across the web.

Built by fans and partners of the social music discovery network, “Build.last.fm” organizes and showcases the many Last.fm applications and widgets tÅ“hat have been developed using the site’s open platform architecture and free webservice tools, which have been available since 2003.

Last.fm estimates that activity around third-party applications on other websites added 19 million music fans to its user base in January, in addition to the 21 million active users engaging with the Last.fm site itself.

Originally posted on February 28, 2008 @ 10:48 am

New on-demand music streaming spurs double digit user growth for Last.fm

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Last.fm realized strong user growth in several key categories after launching it’s free-on-demand streaming service recently. In the United States, Last.fm’s unique listeners increased 85% on the day of launch (Jan. 23) versus the previous Wednesday (Jan. 16). Listening metrics are considered especially relevant as a method to measure a user’s engagement with the site. In addition, the site realized a 45% increase in page views and 27% increase in unique visitors in the U.S. during the same time period.

The site’s momentum continued yesterday as unique listeners increased 80% as compared to the previous Thursday. Page views and unique visitors also increased 60% and 31% respectively during the same time period.

In launching the free-on-demand service earlier this week, Last.fm became the first music web site to offer free, global, on-demand access to the largest licensed catalogue of music built on partnerships with all four major record labels – including Universal Music Group, Sony/BMG, Warner and EMI – as well as CD Baby, IODA, the Orchard, Naxos and more than 150,000 independent labels and artists. Free-on-demand listening is available without registration, or the download of any software.

(Editor’s note: What we should observe is how Last.fm can sustain this and not just a one time growth as expected on new services being launched.)

Originally posted on January 26, 2008 @ 2:10 pm