The future center of your music world.
I’ve been known to jump on a few bandwagons before, I know, but this time I think I’m on to something. Or I shouldn’t say I – many people are on to something. Imagine the following Web 2.0 defining characteristics: mobility, community, based in Silicon Valley. Lala.com is all of these things but so much more. (NOTE: While this is certainly not a pay for play article, I will welcome any and all checks from the company if they should see fit.) I think this website is going to redefine how music is listened to in the future. I’m listening to it right now as I write this, in fact, indulging in “Oh La” by Ra Ra Riot after a friend reminded me of how much I love the song. This was the same friend who turned me on to the site (thanks Tim). So I guess you’re wondering why I think it’s going to change things as we know it.
Lala.com has captured the essence of what many music based start-ups have tried to do for years now.
- There is NO DRM (Digital Rights Management). Steve Jobs say: “Wait, people DON’T want to be restricted by where they can and can’t move/play songs?”
- The site is community based. Users are encouraged to interact with other listeners, recommend songs to one another, and share listening habits. Users also include major trendsetters like Pitchfork, giving people the ability to stay abreast of new tracks like never before.
- The site rewards people who already have a large digital library. Unlike many sites, Lala allows you to sync your own iTunes/MP3 library to its own, giving you FULL web access to your entire library and all your playlists from anywhere that has a web browser and is fast enough to stream music. Every Phish show from ’96 you already own over the internet? Yah, bro.
- The prices are cheaper and varied. Albums clock in at a mere $7.50 (cheaper than Amazon and iTunes), songs are 80 cents, AND you can purchase a web-stream only version of a song for only 10 cents. On top of this, songs that are recommended to you by friends are immediately redeemable (first 50 are FREE) as webstream only versions.
- The interface is easy to use and excellently designed. Adding songs to a Queue on the fly couldn’t be easier. On top of that, the location and top-of-the-page sticky nature of the player and smooth graphics all combine to make the experience very enjoyable… and simple to use.
Now, imagine you have an internet enabled phone connected to a 3G network: entire music library, everywhere you have service. The Lala iPhone app is currently in production and if and when it is released (something tells me Apple won’t love the idea of not needing an iPod anymore) it will change how people listen to music. Given that the iPod Touch and iPhone are Wi-Fi enabled and given that people already have so many peripherals for them (for example, the myriad of portable speaker setups like the iHome), it seems to me that Lala will be the site for seamless integration of all your music listening habits. Whether you’re at work, in the kitchen, in the bedroom, running, in the car, etc. it’s feasible that with the right hardware (cell phone, iPod Touch, netbook, whatever) you can always be listening to exactly what you want and getting new recommendations/suggestions from friends and major media sources any time you want.
I love technology, so maybe I am extrapolating a bit beyond my B+ in Statistics 101, but I think Lala has all the right properties to make it a huge source of change for music listening habits in the future. I read an article a long time ago in Wired where someone argued that eventually all your music will be streamed to you via the internet. As music libraries get bigger and bigger and mobile devices get smaller and smaller, Lala seems to be the realization of this argument. I strongly encourage anyone who is a music fan to sign up (it’s free, after all) and let the good tunes roll. Consider yourself informed.
Lifting Fog 
April 5, 2009 at 5:05 pm |
You’ve almost sold me on this. My first couple experiences there have not been happy ones, though.
Firstly, their “song mover” (or whatever it’s called) uploader app is, unlike the Amazon MP3 downloader, available in only two flavors — Mac and Windows. No Linux. Which yes, I can still do by laboriously logging out of Linux and then getting into Windoze to do the download, OR by using their manual upload procedure.
Which introduced the second problem: SLOOOOOOW freaking uploads. Which, to boot, locked up my browser for the whole long process. (And then when I had a power hit midway through the upload, logged back in when the power came back on, and checked the upload status, found I’d uploaded TWO count ’em TWO songs out of, like, the 15 or 20 I was testing the thing with.)
So maybe if I just look at this as another source for music DOWNloads, then I’ll feel better about it. Does seem to be shrinking its interestingness quite a bit, tho’ — granted, just for me.
April 7, 2009 at 8:26 pm |
haters wanna hate. upgrade your hardware specs from out of the dark ages! maybe they should have put that in their requirements, at least 1.0ghz processor…
harsh I know, but hopefully you can make it work
February 16, 2010 at 1:40 pm |
The cpu is called as a little bit newer model amount but it and also the GPU are likely the similar speed since the 3GS. The old Contact with the same CPU and GPU as the 3G was quicker. Apart from getting the clock speed turned up greater the Touch has much less software programs to run since its not a phone. It should beat any iPhone to this day in performance.
March 11, 2010 at 10:51 pm |
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April 6, 2010 at 3:41 am |
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September 1, 2010 at 2:05 pm |
[…] have been exhausted. LimeWire lost in court recently, the rest dropped out years ago. Even Lala, a site that I had high hopes for in it’s golden era, has been shut down. I chuckled to myself when I realized I had nowhere to […]
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