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Still few exits among music tech startups.

Not exactly sure how to take your comment but Pandora is a public company, the IPO was an "exit" in the valley's sense. Maybe that's what you meant? LastFM was probably the other great example.

True. What else? No experts I know like investing in this space. What are the returns for investors to date in music startups, exactly?

I'm falling back in love with last.fm because of all they've been able to accomplish under CBS's wing. If only they'd drop the idea of "internet radio" and focus on stats.

What's the revenue proposition for a stats site? I guess they could start advertising on the webpages, but that would be a rather desperate move.

(I briefly worked at last.fm; my impression is they haven't done well under CBS, but I could easily be wrong. What do you think has improved since then?)

I'd still position it as a suggestion service, but partner with a music provider (or multiple) to deliver streaming and purchasing. They could also make money as a freemium API; all users get access to 100% of their own data, but bulk data and increased access to aggregate information would be a paid feature.

I was for a long time very frustrated with their movement after the CBS purchase, but they've been making headway recently. That's unusual, in my observations of other similar situations.

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