CBS swoops up Last.fm

Of course everyone knew that this would happen sometime. All the successful Web 2.0 companies get swooped up by the bigger fish once they have proven that they are worth investing in. In a side note eBay just bought StumpleUpon.

The problem with CBS buying Last.fm is just that I really don’t get it. It’s like an old radio company that trying go get back into the game. CBS states that they bought Last.fm because…

Their demographics also play perfectly to CBS’s goal to attract younger viewers and listeners across our businesses. Last.fm adds a terrific interactive extension to all of our properties and also is a huge step in CBS Corporation’s overall strategy of expanding our reach online to transition from a content company into an audience company. #

But why CBS? I could understand if Amazon.com wanted to buy them to greatly amplify their music suggestion engine, or Apple trying to do the same with iTunes. Even Google as a way of structuring even more of our internet persona. But CBS? I don’t get it. And why the heck did Last.fm settle for only 280 million dollars. Than price tag just seems way too low for me, considering that Google shelled out over a billion for YouTube and eBay even more for Skype.

I’ve been a avid user of Last.fm for years and I sincerely hope that CBS will let Last.fm run their own course and do what’s best for the company, service and their brand. But I’m not really counting on it. History (if you can say that about the Web 2.0 companies) often shows otherwise.

New job @ NNIT

Starting September 1st 2007 I’ll be working full time for NNIT A/S (formerly known as Novo Nordisk IT).

I’ll start in their Graduate Program as a project manager primarily overseeing some internet productions and hopefully later move into their newly inaugurated Business Innovation unit as process consultant, since they are doing more or less exactly what we wrote in our master thesis is the best way of doing innovation in software development.

I’m extremely excited about this new job and the pay and benefits go through the roof. Novo Nordisk has a very strong reputation (at least in Denmark) of treating their employees well and from what I’ve learned through the many job interview sessions this reputation is in no way exaggerated.

But since my first work day is September 1st that also means that I have three (as in 3!) months of summer holiday. These months are going to be used for putting the finishing touches on our new apartment, reading a lot of books (more on that later), and enjoying some super-quality time with my wife and son.

Two years

Two years ago my son was born. It is really hard to fathom that it’s been two years already. He’s grown from the smallest thing to a full-grown boy with a (very) strong appetite for life.
He clever, funny, extremely fast learner, but I guess that all parents say that about their children. I just know that in the case of Carl is all true.

I can’t remember who said that having kids is just like having drunken midgets running around your house. I couldn’t agree more.

Happy birthday son.

10 worst album covers of all time

A friend of mine sent me a link the other day that has kept me entertained with what has become my first top ten list. I guess “bottom 10″? would be more appropriate, since it goes from “really bad?” to “crime against humanity”?. The problem with the original website featuring these album covers (Kersbergen has redirected his traffic to this site after his server got all gummed up) is that they were in no particular order and no one wrote any captions. I plan to fix that. Aside from that, I thank the person who gathered and compiled these works of art.

Let’s get down to business, shall we?

Follow the link to Salami Tsunami and I guarantee you that it will be the funniest link you see all day.

Pardon the dust

I’m in the middle of changing the look (and fell) of this weblog, and it might very well take a while (read: days), since my wife is using the computer during the day and I only have a few minutes each night to sort out my computing tasks.

But have no fear, the website might break here and there but it will be up and running smoothly before you know it.

Todo:

• Make (steal/tweak) a new CSS… in progress
• Get a new host… in progress. Currently looking at OCS Solutions

Skywalkers in Korea cross Han solo

Best. Headline. Evar.

[via Kottke.org]

Freakonomics. Overrated?

I seem to be the only one that thinks that Freakonomics is a (highly) overrated book.

Most of the stuff Levitt and Dubner presents in the book as “groundbreaking” or “shockingly interesting” just made me go; “meh”… I don’t get it.

I liked the writing style, that alone made it very readable, but the conclusions, or the very lack of these, make the book seem half-finished. There is no real eye-opener.

They tried to describe what happens when you look beyond the numbers and compare statistics in different ways than normal, but sometimes that is really just not enough. Some of their claims is just a plausible as this graph (found of Swivel.com):

Yes, there seems to be a rather strong correlation between wine consumptions and the fall of violent crimes is the US, but come on seriously, everyone knows that fall in violent crimes is a matter of hundreds (maybe even thousands) of factors and just can be described as such.

Unfortunately that is what Freakonomics so often do.