Digital Home Thoughts: There Ain't No Such Thing As Free Internet Radio

"Not a big surprise here. Last.fm is announcing that their ad-supported model, like the one used on their website, does not work on mobile and connected home entertainment devices. As such, Last.fm will switch to a premium subscription model — with higher quality audio — that will charge users $3/mo to access the service"

Listen up everybody! Today's word is "Freemium". Many successful businesses seem to be finding a home with that business model. Pandora seems to be doing well with it. Google has several services that follow that structure. Zynga's entire existence depends on it. Now it seems that Last.fm joined in on the fun. With ads not always working for all delivery devices, it makes sense that they have to offset costs through other means. All that we really need now is a service that will manage our various subscriptions to the bazillion different Internet services we use. Perhaps Mint.com will offer a premium paid service to do that.