Last.fm is a music website, founded in the United Kingdom in 2002. It has claimed over 40 million active users based in more than 190 countries. On 30 May 2007, CBS Interactive acquired Last.fm for UK£140m (US$280m).
Using a music recommender system called “Audioscrobbler”, Last.fm builds a detailed profile of each user’s musical taste by recording details of the songs the user listens to, either from Internet radio stations, or the user’s computer or many portable music devices. This information is transferred to Last.fm’s database (“scrobbled”) either via the music player itself (Rdio,Spotify, Amarok) or via a plugin installed into the user’s music player. The profile data is then displayed on the user’s profile page. By April 2011 Last.fm reported more than 50 billion scrobbles.
