Apple kills Lala music service

http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-apple-lala-20100501,0,3183500.story

Apple kills Lala music service

Lala listeners will be compensated, says the site, whose technology may be integrated with iTunes.

By Alex Pham, Los Angeles Times

May 1, 2010

Four months after buying Lala Media's popular online music service for a reported $80 million, Apple is pulling the plug on the 5-year-old site.

Lala notified its users in an e-mail Friday morning of the shutdown. Apple Inc. spokesman Jason Roth confirmed the plans, but he declined to say whether the Cupertino, Calif., company would resurrect the service under Apple's iTunes brand.

Lala lets users listen to any song in its catalog in its entirety once for free. After that, listeners can sample the song again for 30 seconds or buy a digital download of the song for 89 cents. What separated Lala from other music services, however, was its concept of a "Web song." Listeners could play a song an unlimited number of times for 10 cents, as long as they were connected to the site.

With iTunes, downloaded songs are stored on a user's computer and can be copied to other computers and devices. Web song files sit on Lala's computers and can be played only while the listener is connected to the Lala site. This is sometimes called "cloud" access.

There has been much speculation about whether Apple would use Lala's technology to create its own music-streaming subscription service to compete with Rhapsody or MOG, which charge monthly fees for on-demand access to their extensive song catalogs. Another possibility is that Apple could use Lala's cloud approach to let customers who purchase a song from iTunes also have online access to that song in a sort of pay-once-play-anywhere idea.

Though cloud computing offers convenience, the downside is clear in the case of Lala. Many users who have spent years diligently building their "digital lockers" on Lala woke up to find that those collections will evaporate on May 31.

Lala said it would compensate users, telling them "you will receive a credit in the amount of your Lala Web song purchases for use on Apple's iTunes Store. If you purchased and downloaded MP3 songs from Lala, those songs will continue to play as part of your local music library. Remaining wallet balances and unredeemed gift cards will be converted to iTunes Store credit (or can be refunded upon request)."

Anyone use lala.com? How is it?
My LaLa playlist, need some additions/recommendations

the decision isn't surprising, but the announcement was so stark that it was jarring.

Lala was a great idea, i loved listening to tracks/albums when Pitchfork linked said album. the music industry just doesn't get it.

i don't think "the music industry" did this

i feel like Apple is part of it now but yeah you are right, misguided anger.

cad deleted Lala from the internet

Everything solid melts into air.

can't wait until they come up with a way to upload my computer to the cloud, that's real cloud computing

Tired of Apple's monopoly.

everyone loves apple until they force you to suck their dick

lol I have an MS Windows PC oh wait...

kelpolaris wtf are you talking about?

i only fucked w lala in pfork embeds & this is still really lame

I've only used Apple products as university resources, or free download players (QT), but strangely, have never owned one. I've a love/hate relationship to their user interfaces.

Part of past enmity towards MS has been near monopolies on a few fields (PC OS & office suites), rather than any product faults. At some point, I suspect Apple may attract, within the markets it dominates, similar levels of distrust/distaste. The market capitalization of the 2 is within 12% as of this writing.

Good industrial design doesn't mean a good neighbor.

ehhh don't you think microsoft has more than its share of product faults?

http://daringfireball.net/2006/06/and_oranges

what is that other than incredibly long?

i think the gist of it is this:

I’m creating things now that I want to be able to read, hear, watch, search, and filter 50 years from now. Despite all their emphasis on content creators, Apple has made it clear that they do not share this goal. Openness is not a cargo cult. Some get it, some don’t. Apple doesn’t.

adobe was bustin apple's balls last week for not supporting flash
always hated os x, tbh. os 9 and previous are obv classic

i was linking to Gruber's article more for points like:

The point here isn’t that everyone ought to agree that the Mac has a “better” user interface than Windows or that the Mac isn’t “open” enough compared to Linux; the point is that everyone ought to be able to have a reasonable discussion about these issues and their relative merits, and do so with the understanding that no one ought to expect to be able to outright prove their case one way or the other.

It’s not a binary situation, where Windows and Linux have bad UIs and Mac OS X has a good one, and but Linux is “open” and Mac OS X and Windows are not. Nor is there just a single continuum upon which to gauge these choices.

It’s often said that you shouldn’t compare apples and oranges — generally used figuratively, but even looking at it literally you can see that it’s not true. You need to compare apples and oranges when you’re deciding what to pack in your lunch. What you can’t do is compare apples and oranges and somehow conclusively prove that one is better than the other.

the thing hobbes quoted is NOT something Gruber said, but something Gruber quoted fwiw

so the lala "sorry we're shutting down" page says this:

Web songs. In appreciation of your support, you will receive a credit in the amount of your Lala web song purchases for use on Apple's iTunes Store.

are "web songs" every song you've downloaded from lala?

if so, i may need to reactivate my itunes account (which sucks, since that means i must install the new version of itunes, which invariably messes-up my PCs connection to my external drive).

why i still only buy cds, reason #32468

i hear that. but compared to, say, emusic, cd's are very, very expensive.

Daniel: i *think* web songs are songs you pay a small amount for & then can only stream from their website. right? *shrugs*

yeah, that's what i figured (sadly).

thanks.

yeah, i've never signed up for a Lala account, but i've streamed a lot from their site & as far as i could tell that's what's up

btw, getting annoyed with Apple for "killing" Lala is an exercise in willful point-missing. If Lala's prospects had been bright, the controlling interests would have had little incentive to sell.

Which is to say, this was Lala's best-case scenario. C'est la vie. Lala is dead, long live whatever becomes of the technology and the team in Apple's hands.

i assume some of its good features will pop up in itunes, so yeah it's more just inconvenient than anything

i don't disagree in theory, roger. i just don't like itunes. i'd prefer lala's technology to stay independent, or at least exist outside of the itunes platform.

totally understood - my point being, the people who invested their money and/or every waking minute in Lala would ultimately have preferred that too, so that they sold out suggests that their independent existence was increasingly in question as each day went by in which they spent more money than they took in.

I still seem to have a drawer full of the Lala cd trading sleeves. Funny to think that's how Lala originally started.

does Lala still do CD trading? I still have a bunch of sleeves too.

Yeah, if Lala's features get incorporated into iTunes, one of the things that's lost is a browser-based streaming service. I don't have iTunes on my computer at work, but Lala allowed me to listen to every song in my collection that was also on Lala, for free, anytime, anywhere.

last day, sadly. it actually makes a difference to me whether lala "closing on may 31st" means midnight tonight or midnight tomorrow night. if it's the latter, i will have a frenzy of last-minute purchases.

RIP; yesterday I used the $16 in credit they gave me for my trade balance (I'd shipped a lot more than I'd received over the years). I never used the mp3 / streaming thing until yesterday. But we had some good times, lala, you and me and Whitney Houston and the like.

i only found lala relatively recently -- and only had downloaded one record. for the short time i used it, though, it was great to sample stuff for free before plunking down cash.

kinda sounds from the home page like shutdown is midnight tonight. that's a bummer, since i'm flying cross-country all day and won't have a chance to download last-minute items before midnight tonight.

cancel yr flight

priorities LOL

I TOOK YOUR ADVICE AND CANCELED MY FLIGHT. I AM IN SAN FRANCISCO NOW . . . DOWNLOADING.

proud of you man

currently on the "b"s.

All artists beginning B

• B Boys, The
• B*Witched
• B+S
• B, Stevie
• B-52s
• B-Movie
• B.B.E.
• B.E.F.
• B.O.S.E
• B.Z.N.
• B12
• B2K
• Baader Meinhof
• Baba Looey
• Babakoto
• Babble
• Babe Ruth
• Babes In Toyland
• Babson, Monty
• Baby Amphetamine
• Baby Animals
• Baby Bash

if you don't finish downloading all of Music before the service cuts out, they permanently own all your digital and physical copies of music in your home and elsewhere, so

this will play out like ruby ridge, i can feel it.

oh man, irl lol 4 real dude

. . . now on the "e"s . . .

• E (pre Eels)
• E F Band
• E, Katherine
• E-Rotic (sounds good, must listen to this one)
• E-Type
• E-Types
• E-zee Possee
• E.G. Daily
• E.P.M.D.
• E.S.G.
• E.T.
• E.T.A.
• E.Y.C.
• Eagles(scratch this one, i hate the eagles)
• Eagles Of Death Metal
• Eaglin, Snooks

r u hacking into their server or somethin d00d?

just as i thought

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o0fQ1eWv36o

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_xWkd0WxD_x8/SXHo3WBrmtI/AAAAAAAACCU/xlle0uv0ZIQ/s400/insanity.jpg

http://www.picpop.com/gallery/albums/userpics/1-14-05/thumb_ashlee-simpson.gif http://www.picpop.com/gallery/albums/userpics/1-14-05/thumb_ashlee-simpson.gif http://www.picpop.com/gallery/albums/userpics/1-14-05/thumb_ashlee-simpson.gif http://www.picpop.com/gallery/albums/userpics/1-14-05/thumb_ashlee-simpson.gif http://www.picpop.com/gallery/albums/userpics/1-14-05/thumb_ashlee-simpson.gif http://www.picpop.com/gallery/albums/userpics/1-14-05/thumb_ashlee-simpson.gif http://www.picpop.com/gallery/albums/userpics/1-14-05/thumb_ashlee-simpson.gif http://www.picpop.com/gallery/albums/userpics/1-14-05/thumb_ashlee-simpson.gif

RIP

"The Lala service has been discontinued as of May 31st, 2010."

http://img176.imageshack.us/img176/9859/lalalol.jpg

hope Daniel isn't having a nervous breakdown rite now

And one day we will die
And our files will cry in a harddrive under a roof
But for now we're alive
Let's get in our cars and we'll drive
And listen to every mp3 we have pilfered
Love to be in the chair with my butt print in theeeee seeaaatt

A+++

this is the saddest day ever

All around me are familiar faces
Worn out places, worn out faces
Bright and early for their daily races
Going nowhere, going nowhere
Their tears are filling up their glasses
No expression, no expression
Hide my head I want to drown my sorrow
No tomorrow, no tomorrow
And I find it kind of funny
I find it kind of sad
The dreams in which I'm dying
Are the best I've ever had
I find it hard to tell you
I find it hard to take
When people run in circles
It's a very, very
Mad World

pretty psyched about the end of this shitty thing

i started getting these noticed about people following me and tracking my listening, and i thought it was super fucking creepy and stupid and pointless

Lala tracks ppls listening? i never had an account -- it was just sweet for streaming random tracks from P4k and shit

dobe was bustin apple's balls last week for not supporting flash
always hated os x, tbh. os 9 and previous are obv classic

― hobbes, Saturday, 1 May 2010 20:26 (1 month ago)

Are you on drugs?? even by os8 it felt tired, no multitasking so when one program crashed 9/10 it would take the whole system with it

i started getting these noticed about people following me and tracking my listening, and i thought it was super fucking creepy and stupid and pointless

wait what?

i definitely thought that feature was silly and pointless. it's like "friends" on emusic, acting as recommendation engines for each other. but downloading a disc isn't evidence that you like it (e.g., it may have been an impulse buy you later regretted; pleasent but totally forgettable; one good single and the rest was horrible). plus, people have terrible taste.

oh, forgot! gotta go to 7digital right away to download this awesome disc

http://www.greenbaypressgazette.com/ic/blogs/preps/uploaded_images/1-733493.jpg

brb

looooooooool

you can have friends on last.fm as well -- and that has never been a problem as long as i'd been on THAT site.

Sounds like you guys are really self-conscious about other ppl seeing what you download.

dogg you want everyone looking at all the music you buy? gtfo of my iTunes, everybody!

stop looking at my music downloads, everybody!

dogg you want everyone looking at all the music you buy?

Why would I mind, unless I'm feeling self-conscious and secretive about what I'm buying?

i don't want fuckin creeps knowing everything i'm doing, even if I'm just listening to Torche! Zuck's wrong, privacy for days!

Ha, that was one of the things that appealed to me about AudioScrobbler (now Last.fm) back in 2004. I liked broadcasting my listening habits!

Precisely!

i'm just confused as to why a professional music critic didn't like his listening habits being broadcast

i like to keep some things to myself -- i don't want someone knowing what i'm listening to at any moment of the day

delete facebook delete twitter
did you know people can see your status updates? i thought only my friends read that shit

you deleted your accounts bro?

uhh where were you on intl. delete facebook day 2010

that's like our May '68 man

i'm just confused as to why a professional music critic didn't like his listening habits being broadcast

― call all destroyer, Friday, June 4, 2010 10:08 AM (59 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

Because if I'm using Lala it's not because it's shit I'm enjoying, it's shit I'm checking out for the first time and I don't need everyone knowing exactly how late I am to the game with Wild Nothing or whatever

Gorilla vs. Bear posted about that shit in Sept. 2009, buddy, you are LAAAAAAAAAATE:

http://gorillavsbear.blogspot.com/2009/09/wild-nothing.html

xp haha ok

Gorilla vs. Bear is the worst thing on blogspot

the one wild nothing song i have is a fuckin jam tho

naming your band Wild Nothing is kinda like naming your band Fuckin Wallpaper

that would be a great name

i just got my whopping big $2 credit for the ITunes store -- and gotta spend it all in one place

o_O

O_O

what are you thinkin' of buying?

i used to buy an online version of david brubeck's time out. it was the only lala purchase that i'd made.

i meant, it was from my lala purchase of the brubeck record.

http://lala.com

;_;

• The site could be temporarily unavailable or too busy. Try again in a few

• If you are unable to load any pages, check your computer's network

• If your computer or network is protected by a firewall or proxy, make sure

• Deal with it.

stfu

lala is dead

lala is still dead

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s1tAYmMjLdY