The big music-tech news of the weekend was that Apple has purchased Lala.com. Apple, of course, makes your laptop, your portable music device, your phone, and your iTunes Music Store — well, maybe not yours personally, but lots of folks’. Lala is an online music streaming site that lets users listen to any song once for free, then charges 10 cents a pop for the right to stream it endlessly, or a bit more if you want to download an MP3. Even if you’re not a Lala customer, you may be familiar with their streams since they started showing up prominently on Google searches this fall.
So what does this deal mean for you, the consumer? Right now it’s difficult to say. Bloomberg News quotes one expert saying the move “may signal that Apple is more interested in creating a subscription service,” since Lala users’ streaming songs stay on Lala servers instead of their own hard drives. A New York Times story, however, said this deal happened because Lala’s business model wasn’t working out (“a bit too complex for many Web users”), and that Apple was really only buying its talented creative team. We’ll have to wait and see which of those reports, if either, is correct.
In the meantime, speculate away! What do you think Apple wants to do with Lala? Do you use either Lala or iTunes to buy music, or both? Do you think Lala’s model is clever enough to be worth integrating into the iTunes system somehow, or was it so confusing that it makes sense to fold the company into iTunes?
UPDATE: An Apple spokesperson released the following statement when asked about the deal: “Apple buys smaller technology companies from time to time and we generally do not comment on our purpose or plans.”
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LaLa is relaly pretty amazing once you get the hang of it. And depending on how you use it, it’s much cheaper than iTunes. Given that iTunes has recently been raising prices, offers only 30 second snippets, etc…, I worry that Apple might simply see this as the easiest way to get rid of what might otherwise turn into a legitimate competitor.
This has me worried as well. Lala is great for listening to full albums for free. While I do not purchase music through it, I do use it to see if the album I want is worth buying or not. I really hope Apple doesn’t mess with a good thing!
They charge you like 8 cents to stream it and .79 or so to download. Great site.
The article is a little confused about what Lala did – One stream of any song was free, infinite streaming was 10 cents and mp3 downloads were 79 cents. As someone else already mentioned, it iss a great way to check out a new album before buying. I hope they don’t change that…
This article is incorrect. They charge you $0.10 to stream it from the site endlessly and $1.29 or $0.89 for an MP3 (and if you already paid $0.10 for the right to stream it, you apply that to the cost of the MP3, so $0.79 or $1.19
i really hope they keep the site intact, it’s a great site and has a lot of cool features.
I love the site for the plain and simple fact that I was able to upload my entire 10,000 song music collection to my account and stream it from any computer. I’m at work and I have access to all of my music. Pretty sweet.
Hopefully Apple will be wise enough to see that lala is a gem of a site. Lala is the best legal music site I’ve ever used and iTunes doesn’t hold a candle to it. Lala is the closest thing to bridging the divide between music piracy and worked-over music consumers.
LaLa is a pathetic site… why pay for streaming when you could stream almost every song out there for free on Imeem.com?
Consider me tech-unsavvy. Is there any other way to buy songs besides iTunes? I was told Limewire is rife with viruses, but iTunes gets pricey. Any clean, legit subscription service?
I always buy my MP3′s from Amazon. I’ve never ever had any issues. I’ve copied them onto my thumb drive and plug that in at work and random play music all day while at the office.
I use LaLa at school because it’s one of the only websites that isn’t blocked by the filter.
I hope Apple doesn’t change anything with it.
I LOVE the cheap prices of Lala.com. In fact, I found out about Lala.com in an issue of EW. Lala is much cheaper than iTunes when purchasing albums and new members get 50 song credits so they can stream 50 songs unlimited. I believe iTunes bought out the company to eliminate competition. It would be great if iTunes offered some of the same services Lala did but I sure will miss Lala’s prices.
I hope Apple will leave it the way it is. I just discovered this site and I love it.