So Last.fm, the darling of the London tech scene, is finally sold. It was only a matter of time.
The story is on MediaGuardian: the US broadcaster paid $280m (£141m) for the site but that could go up to $320m if that site reaches various performance targets.
That leaves co-founders Martin Stiksel, Felix Miller and Richard Jones really rather flush, and adds fuel to the fire of all those square-eyed techies in garages all over London. That's quite a prize.
Looking at the previous landmark social media deals, it would seem that CBS did rather well.
News Corp paid $580m for MySpace in July 2005 - that's $32 for each of the 16m unique users at that time.
Google paid $1.65bn for YouTube last October, or $82.50 for each of the 20m users.
And CBS paid the equivalent of $18.67 for each of Last.fm's 15m active users - at the conservative end of the site's user numbers.
It's very crude, admittedly, to work out a rate per user for these kind of acquisitions, but it does give an idea of the significance of each investment. YouTube is without doubt the video site, and Google's acquisition cemented that.
Last.fm, it could be argued, is more valuable as a targeted, focused and very in-depth marketing tool that could be a powerful marketing tool for a big music company - and that's why the Viacom acquisition rumour in February got so much airspace.
Mike Butcher, who was writing about digital media while I was still a twinkle in my Daddy's eye (well, kind of), told me that this was a good deal for both companies really.
Last.fm have got serious American money behind them now and can cary on doing what they do well at arm's length from CBS. Only 4m of their figure of 15m active users are from the US - A gnat bite, as Mike said, in the US market.
Looking at blog coverage today, he said, the tone was "there's this site called Last.fm - you might not have heard of it..."
By contrast, Last.fm is the poster child for the London tech scene over here.
CBS can ship Last.fm's sturdy technical platform back to the US, but if they'd tried to buy a similar site in the US it would have had more users and so would have been more expensive, thinks Mike.
Mike said he doubts there are any music companies with enough nous to take on Last.fm, and know what to do with all that data.
And why didn't CBS come up with Last.fm themselves? I love asking this question. What is it about big organisations that makes it so hard for them to innovate? They do, after all, have the money and the resources.
Why is it the guys in garages with no money that are the most creative?
There are plenty of M and A rumours in the mill, but who's next?
Bebo, anyone?
Gratuitous link of the day
The Great Big Vegetable Challenge. It gives hope to frustrated parents everywhere.
Plus you might like to check out the fledgling and already hilarious Love in the time of Chlamydia, and the utterly brilliant someecards.com You won't be able to stop sending them...
(Thanks Patrick, Tom and, erm, Monkey Tennis)
