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Ambition and humbleness sound like opposites, but in this new world of brand 2.0, anything is possible.

Last FM just got taken over by CBS and they wrote about it on their blog last week.

Here's the last paragraph of the post that shows, or is designed to show (?), that despite being taken over by a multi billion media corporation, they are still human.

"There is quite a sense of achievement at Last.fm HQ today, we see this is as a huge boost for Last.fm and we are confident that together with CBS we have the wherewithall to change the music industry, and way people interact with music for good. Now we are all going for a slap up vietnamese lunch at the Viet Hoa. We’ll be back in an hour to finish off our facebook app :)"

Most of the comments from users to this post were positive.
In the last week, there have been a couple of really interesting developments in the world of media.

- New media entity Facebook, run by a 23 year-old,  opened up its API to third party developers.

- Old media giant, CBS purchased Wallstrip, Last FM and opened up its video content to broad internet distribution.

“In launching the CBS Audience Network we solidified our position as the most widely distributed professional content provider on the Web thanks to our great video distribution partners. We now want to empower our audience to be creative and deepen their experience with our content by allowing them to share and embed CBS-provided clips to their blogs, wikis, widgets, community sites and whatever else gets thrown our way. We are delighted to have so many quality partners — established and start ups — helping to bring CBS content to the online community.”

Quincy Smith-CBS Interactive

All these developments are significant, they recognize that the closed systems of old cannot compete in today's marketplace. To survive, you have to open things up and let your content out or let others come in and play.

Look around you, there are dozens of closed systems that are ripe for change, one is mobile communication. One interesting exception will be the iPhone, it's Wi-Fi enabled, users will not be obliged to use AT&T's network to make calls.

This is a trend Influx was been talked about for years and it applies to brands as they start to develop content and become more media like in their behavior. Create stuff, open up that creativity to others and distribute it freely. The idea that people have to come to your site to check out your content, is antiquated. Bud.TV might have been a success if it could have found a way to distribute its content around the internet (something it's now thinking about), instead of demanding that people come and visit.