My perception of the last.fm service is that they've been hitting the limits of their hardware and networking for some time now. Pages typically take 10 seconds or more to refresh; sometimes they just time out. Lots of other stuff is either slow or occasionally fails.

The new parent company needs to invest in infrastructure before doing anything else.

I though that Viacom was still intertwined with CBS, both being part of "National Amusements" - CBS of today is the former Westinghouse, who took over the old CBS.

Columbia/CBS records is part of SonyBMG as are their former Rivals RCA records.

I bought CBS stock. Which was bought by Westinghouse. Which was bought by Viacom. Which sold Westinghouse. And then spun off CBS. So I own Viacom B (non voting) and CBS.

Independent artists who use this service to gain exposure should probably go elsewhere. The mobster record companies do not like you to make any money without them getting a cut.

Last.fm will probably go the same way as mp3.com

Last.fm was one of the few web 2.0 sites that was actually useful. Now I guess we'll see CBS artists promoted over and above any others. Too bad.