The news that Apple has acquired LaLa.com made me look back fondly at my old pal LaLa.
Four years ago I joined up with LaLa.com when it first started. The premise of the site then was to swap. Those old CDs you had that you no longer listened to could be swapped with other users for ones you did want to listen to. As a person with hundreds and hundreds of CDs languishing unlistened, it seemed like a match made in heaven.
But then, as with anything that is made to do just what I want it to do, the purists stepped in. They only wanted to trade if you not only had the booklet for your CDs but also the back inserts and spine inserts. As someone who had long ago given up keeping jewel cases in favor of a notebook filing system, it became increasingly difficult for me to trade my CDs. A price increase in the trading finally put an end to my fun and I put my account “on vacation”.
But while I was disappointed with the trading aspect, the people of LaLa.com were another matter. They were fun, helpful, and amazingly accessible. One of their tech guys spent a few days trading files back and forth with me when they introduced the LaLa Visualizer for iTunes. It had some issues on the Mac and they solved it. A big plus in my book. And when they went to a new packaging method, my post office tried to charge me extra to deliver my last CD trades. I contacted LaLa and they were on it, contacting my post office and setting them straight. I can’t say enough good things about the folks at LaLa.
I revisited LaLa.com to see what it was all about. Now it’s mainly a streaming service. You can listen to any song they have in their library once for free. This is great just for sampling songs. Thirty seconds just isn’t long enough to know if you’re going to like it.
For 10 cents, you can add a song to your online library. You can play that song whenever you want through the LaLa interface. Again, this appeals to me a bit. I tend to listen to my music on the computer anyway. It doesn’t make any difference whether I listen via LaLa or via iTunes. And I can even upload my iTunes library to LaLa so it’ll be all in one place.
For 89 cents (or 79 cents if you already have paid 10 cents to have it in your library) you can download the MP3 version of the song so it can be used on your iPod or other portable device. Although while I was browsing, I did see some songs priced at $1.29. Again this is acceptable to me as I buy songs from iTunes at 99 cents or $1.29 for the DRM free ones. In fact, the main reason I don’t buy from iTunes more is all that DRM stuff. Every time I switch computers or upgrade iTunes, I have to reauthorize my music.
I wonder what will happen to LaLa now that Apple owns it? Will the heavy handedness of Apple’s music distribution become the rule of the day or will the music loving folks at LaLa be allowed to continue to operate as they have been?
I’ve reconnected with my old pal LaLa. I hope my joy isn’t once more dashed.
Entries (RSS)