Last.FM has got in touch to say that since the new Coldplay single ‘Violet Hill’ was released for free on Coldplay’s website this morning, Last.FM has been tracking the number of times it’s been listened to. And it’s a lot: 10,000 times in the 5 hours since the track was released. That’s 1 play every 2 seconds. Apparently the last time a track was listened to this intensively on Last.fFM was ‘15 Step’ from Radiohead’s free In Rainbows album, which clocked up close to 22,000 listens in 12 hours. Coldplay has had about 51 million listens on the site and their entire back catalogue of music is available for free-on-demand streaming. I’m not sure how that would compare, say, to a radio station playing a track on high rotation during a typical day of release. But then Last.FM’s service can go on forever, right down into the Long Tail, the radio station can’t.
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Mike Butcher (M.B.E.), formerly Editor-at-large of TechCrunch, has written for UK national newspapers and magazines and been named one of the most influential people in European technology by Wired UK. He has spoken at the World Economic Forum, Web Summit, and DLD. He has interviewed Tony Blair, Dmitry Medvedev, Kevin Spacey, Lily Cole, Pavel Durov, Jimmy Wales, and many other tech leaders and celebrities. Mike is a regular broadcaster, appearing on BBC News, Sky News, CNBC, Channel 4, Al Jazeera and Bloomberg. He has also advised UK Prime Ministers and the Mayor of London on tech startup policy, as well as being a judge on The Apprentice UK. GQ magazine named him one of the 100 Most Connected Men in the UK. He is the co-founder of TheEuropas.com (Top 100 listing of European startups); and the non-profits Techfugees.com, TechVets.co, and Startup Coalition. He was awarded an MBE in the Queen’s Birthday Honours list in 2016 for services to the UK technology industry and journalism.

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