Last.fm dudes try again

CAN LIGHTNING STRIKE TWICE? Last.fm founders Martin Stiksel and Felix Miller are peddling a new online concept they claim will be even bigger than their first venture, six years after CBS bought their customizable music site for $280m, the Financial Times reports. Their start-up, an aggregation service called Lumi, is a plug-in for Chrome and Firefox (initially, at least) designed to gather everything on the Web that is likely to be of interest to you based on your previous browsing activity. “It took quite an idea to shake us out of hibernation,” said Miller in an interview with FT, adding that Lumi was still “preaching the same gospel” as Last.fm by aggregating online content, but on a much larger scale. “Users are bombarded with requests to add, like and follow all the time,” he pitched. “Lumi does all the hard work for you, and delivers dynamic recommendations without you ever having to update what or who you are interested in.” Miller and Stiksel have been developing their new business for the past two years in London, hiring nine former Last.fm staffers to develop the technology. They’ve also opened an office in San Francisco. So far, the venture has been self-funded. (7/12a)