If you're a Last.fm user and you pulled three euros a month for a subscription, you probably did it for two reasons: to see who visits your profile and for the possibility of listening to internet radio. Last.fm's radio works in a way that you type in the performers name, genre or one third of the tag by which you want to perform a selection of music (or choose friends whose music collection you want to listen to), then the stream will immediately initiate. That is a great way to listen to music when you do not know what to play, or if you just want to discover new bands.

Apple is preparing to compete head-to-head with Pandora and other companies that offer Internet radio services, sources have said. The time frame for this is the beginning of next year. Apple could close deals with major music labels by mid-November and after that they won’t need them much to launch their own streaming radio service. They will probably use a smart radio model like Pandora and avoid the expensive on-demand model that is used by Spotify. Ads will be also there (Apple’s iAds), but it is still unknown how revenues be split between the Apple and the music labels.