14 DAY TRIAL // Music streaming services have been seeing a lot of interest lately but most of the focus has been on either newcomers or the failing ones. Last.fm, one of the oldest and still one of the most popular music services, has been staying quiet for the most part, but things are definitely moving forward behind the scenes. While others are still trying to get their business off the ground, Last.fm has made a very, very interesting deal with Microsoft to get its service on the company's popular game console the Xbox 360.
The deal was announced half a year ago, but things tend to move slower in the gaming world than in social media, so the Last.fm integration only came to fruition last week. And, the results are already beginning to show, the music streaming service managed to get almost one million new subscribers from the Xbox Live users which signed up for Last.fm. The CBS-owned company says that it was the biggest growth the site has seen since launch and that it broke the record for most users registered in a 24-hour period.
They're not just signing up, the new users are making the most out of the service and already 120 million minutes of music have been streamed from the consoles. It's clear by now that the new social media features on the Xbox 360 are a hit and Last.fm should be more than delighted. Of course, it also has to convert those listeners into paying customers or some sort of revenue and details are little fuzzy on that.
Neither Microsoft nor CBS are saying what type of deal they have or spelling out the financial details. Last.fm is available to all Xbox 360 users, though in Xbox Live Silver, the basic, free version of the service, users are limited to 180 minutes of music per month. Subscribers to the Xbox Live Gold service get unlimited streaming, but to take advantage of the full Last.fm experience users have to pony up an additional $3 to get rid of the ads and get several perks like uninterrupted listening or recent profile visitors.