Sundaily Rec: LaLa Land
I guess I’m the music guy around here, and as such, I feel it is my obligation to inform our readers that lala.com is the truth.
Here’s how the site works: It has licenses from all of the major labels to place all of their songs online for streaming or purchase. What a paradigm shift! Seriously though, lala is doing something very cool with their online streaming. You can listen to any major label song you like for free…once. After that, you have to purchase it. What makes lala different and better is that it offers online purchasing without a download. Basically, their servers store your purchases, making them available for streaming over the internet from any computer in the world. Of course, in the era of ipods, making a listener’s music library portable has more or less ceased to qualify as a competitive advantage. So, lala combines their cloud storage concept with exceptionally aggressive pricing…around 10 cents per track, and less when you buy an album. Essentially, you can now purchase an album for $1. More importantly, lala will also allow you to purchase the songs for download, as a DRM-free file. If you’ve already purchased a song for web listening and decide you want to download it, you’re given a 10-cent credit on the purchase. Oh, and best of all…if lala detects a song on your computer, you can stream it for free without purchasing it at all.
There’s also a social networking element that I’m not yet clear on, but I imagine it will work much like model established by Netflix. Which means that it will add a lot of texture to the site by allowing me to get a feel for what my friends like and vice-versa.
The internet listening model is limited - it’s just another form of DRM, but such an effectively priced form that I think the cost-benefit analysis favors the customer. Still, THIS is what I’ve been wanting for years. I don’t want to pay $15 a month simply to rent music. I want a super-cheap way to try albums that catch my attention so that I can make more informed decisions about purchases. My gut is telling me that lala may be just the way to do that.
I dunno, I used Rhapsody for about 5 years, and I loved it for most of that time. Two things that made it really great:
1. You could listen to anything, at any time. I started listening to all sorts of stuff that I wouldn’t have normally, from classic bluegrass to psytrance to 80s death metal. They had just about everything, and you never had to think about any cost associated with it. You just listened to whatever struck your fancy, whenever.
2. Rhapsody was awesome during parties….people could just sit down at the laptop and add any song they wanted to the playlist. Doing this with lala would be aggravating b/c you’d be paying for every song (ok, some of the songs, I assume a lot would fall under the first time listening bit)
I ended up canceling Rhapsody b/c they’ve got the absolute worst programmers I’ve ever seen. They had a string of 4 or 5 software releases, each WORSE than the one before it. The interface got more cluttered, harder to organize, and less stable. It was ridiculous.
Still, if I could, I would rejoin. It allowed me to listen to so much new music. Too bad it doesn’t work in the UK.
I think what this really comes down to is one’s perspective on ownership. I prefer to own my music, but some, including you, are comfortable with the rental model. I think it would be interesting to see the factors that lead people to make their decisions on the issue, though.
I have to say though, so far as the party concept goes, I have about 20,000 songs. If I’m missing a song or two somebody wants, it’s a rarity.