Update: Get owned by Apple, Lala
Apple to shutdown lala.com on May 31st. I suppose now we'll see all of these things that WOULD have been awesome now integrated into iTunes in some way... freaking lame.
Lala's final day of operation comes just one week before Apple's annual Worldwide Developers Conference, where the company has traditionally introduced new iPhone devices and other products. With the end of Lala coming so close to WWDC 2010, the move has sparked some speculation that Apple could introduce a Web-based version of iTunes as early as June.
Backing up that assertion is a January report from The Wall Street Journal stating that Apple has been working on a "Web-based version of [iTunes] that could launch as soon as June . . . tentatively called iTunes.com." Currently, iTunes.com redirects to Apple.com/itunes.
Lala.com is was going to explode in popularity in the next few months, possibly even weeks. Why? Try typing a any "[artist] - [song]" search into Google. The first result you get back will be a Lala link with a built in play button right in the search results; click the play icon right there at the top of the search results and your song will start playing. Not a sample--
the whole song, in perfect quality. That's right, Google is already backing them 100%.
Lala.com - The free music site that Apple ate :(
Try it yourself, it's simple!If you don't want to Google it, head on over to
Lala.com and type in an artist, song, or album name in the search bar and play whatever you want, no account or login needed. I've searched for several artists, even lesser known ones, and it has had a great deal of their songs listed and available to play for free. Often even entire albums. Searching for bands from Strata to Bleeding Through to Amanda Palmer, I have found near entire discographies fully available. Of the few artists that I found were not available, Lala.com specified that they were actively gathering licenses for them.
You'll have to login after you play too many songs within the specified time limit, but it's all still free. If you want to keep playing songs for free, just make a free account and sign it. It takes less than a minute and requires only your name, email, and passsword-- no activation necessary. Creating an account also has the added benefit of allowing you to organize songs that you like into lists, which is handy.
The audio quality is very impressive (no noticeable compression or other things you would usually associate with streaming music) and the media-player is simple and buffers instantly.
Additionally, they offer standard MP3 album downloads for prices comparable to Amazonmp3 and iTunes. The really interesting thing though is that you can buy a "web album" only playable through your browser. Why would you want to do that? Because it's it's $1 for an entire album. Yep, $1. Odds are that they have the entire album (or most of it) listed for free anyway, but if they don't, this is a great option.
It seems like this is really going to take off as a service, so you should definitely check it out. It certainly beats Pandora and Last.fm in my book, especially i you are trying to listen to music somewhere where you don't have your MP3 collection.
