Music site Last.fm bought by CBS

Social music site Last.fm has been bought by US media giant CBS Corporation for $280m (£140m), the largest-ever UK Web 2.0 acquisition

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After reading this story a few weeks ago, I started using last.fm. You can see my weekly music tastes on the right side of the page.

I really liked the idea of being able to have a way to see how my listening habits compare to others. And, now that all the music I listen to is via my iPod or iTunes, that is possible. What sealed the deal for me was that with the CBS acquisition, the site should be around for a while (nothing like investing time in a site only to have it fail).

I'm not really into the "social" aspects of the site, but I really like seeing what other people who have similar tastes (called neighbors by last.fm) are listening to.

The key to making it work for me was not using their standard software, but instead iSproggler so my iPod tracks are uploaded along with my iTunes listening history. It can be a bit tricky to get going. They key to having your iPod tracks upload is to always sync your iPod before listening to something in iTunes. iSproggler compares the last updated date with the current date. If you listen to a track in iTunes, the date is updated and the older iPod tracks are disregarded. The discussion group on last.fm has some other help and tips if you get stuck.

Now, I just wish they had this kind of thing 20 years ago so my lifetime of music listening would be accurately represented.