The Outsidr

By now you must have read about the widely-covered TechCrunch / Last.fm fiasco. To recap very, very quickly: TechCrunch posted what turned out to be a completely unsubstantiated rumor that Last.fm had handed sensitive user data over to the RIAA, Last.fm said it was completely false several times, Ars Technica revealed that not even the RIAA knew what TechCrunch was talking about and then Last.fm clarified the situation one last time in a blog post entitled, “Techcrunch are full of shit”. Zoinks.

To be fair, I can definitely empathize with Erick Schonfeld’s situation. I am a tech blogger and I know what kind of pressure bloggers can be under to be the first to cover an exclusive scoop. At the same time, when dealing with a sensitive topic that essentially accuses a company of violating the trust of its users, one must exercise some restraint. Schonfled did the right thing by reaching out for comment and Last.fm did the wrong thing by responding with PResque bullshit: “To our knowledge, no data has been made available to RIAA.”

At the same time, Schonfeld was way too accusatory in his post. He received a tip, seemingly from an unknown tipster as he does not refer to said tipster as a trusted source. He then went on to assume the rumor was true and blasted Last.fm with the level of vigor TechCrunch has become known for. Shortly after his post went live, the fallout began. TechCrunch readers took Schonfeld’s word as gospel and began closing their accounts out of sheer disgust that the company would so severely misuse its user data.

When Last.fm finally came around and made its position more clear in the comments section of TechCrunch’s post among other places, Schonfeld did the right thing and posted numerous updates. Hopefully at that point defunct users began to reinstate their accounts. More importantly however, many blogs picked up the story and ultimately gave Last.fm a massive wave of free positive press awesome.

And so we get to the point of my post. I have seen several people sign up for Last.fm as a result of this fiasco and I hope many more do. What started as a direct attack on Last.fm’s credibility ended up presenting the service in a positive light to tens of thousands of people who will hopefully check the service out and encourage others to do so as well. After all, internet radio providers are in the midst of a huge battle to stay afloat and despite recent victories for some, the war is ongoing. Last.fm is a fantastic service that allows users to stream custom artist and genre-based stations to computers and mobile devices, as well as track listening habits to create custom stations even better-catered to a user’s individual tastes. The service is completely free, with a paid option ($36 per year) granting users some great additional features. I have been a paid subscriber for quite some time now.

So if launching an attack on Last.fm and starting some bogus and completely unsubstantiated rumors might ultimately result in growth, I’ve decided to start some rumors of my own…

Last.fm uses illegal steroids, steals purses from old women and eats babies.