CBS launches Play.it to compete with, er, Last.fm
US media giant CBS has quietly launched something called Play.it – a music streaming service that lets users create their own personalised stations, listen to artist-themed stations, or tap into 340 existing channels from CBS and AOL Radio.
It’s got a nifty interface for creating your own stations, where you drag and drop artists, songs, stations, albums or genres into a bulls-eye, and depending how close they are to the centre, that affects your station.
It draws on a catalogue of around 1.3 million songs. It should provide competition for the likes of Last.fm, and… hang on! CBS paid $280 million for Last.fm last year, yet Play.it sounds like a direct competitor. Wasn’t the company planning a big marketing push for Last.fm in North America? It all seems a bit rum.
(via Listening Post)
November 20th, 2008 at 6:01 am
Fuck both Play.it and Last.fm
November 24th, 2008 at 2:03 am
I designed a few stations so Visitors to my blog have a choice of music while they’re there. And, sometimes, it saves me from having to compile a playlist.
Scribal Thrum Radio
http://dredeyedick.wordpress.com
I like play.it. CBS is doing a lot right with this model by taking care of the licensing on the back end and letting the social networking trends do their own thing to bring it forward.
I think the song rotation will improve once play.it’s algorthm uses more of a music genome project approach, if it doesn’t already.
fwiw,
-dcm
April 5th, 2009 at 4:51 pm
I used the playit player a couple of times unfortunely the playit player is crap. CBS. Come On Get It Right The 1st Time. If you think you have the music world by the storm guys you dont there’s better out there.