Lala Offers Free Streaming Music & iPod Downloading
06.05.07 - 11:55am
Lala has just opened up a new internet service where listening to albums and music on the computer is free, and where the music can then be loaded from any computer onto your iPod.
Lala allows you to download the music directly from a web page onto your iPod - without using iTunes software. You are also 
able to create playlists, listen to albums and share music for free - that is with the music that Lala has a license with which is currently just Warner, with access to 200,000 of their songs - the rest of the music can be listened to in 30 second samples. (But hey having Warner’s music available for free streaming is one heck of a way to kick off a service.) Lala is currently negotiating for music rights with the other three major music labels and the independents as well.
Lala allows you to listen the albums and songs free of charge by paying the record labels $6 to $8 a month per user, or in Warners case a penny a song listened to, all in the hopes that you will then pay to download the music you like to your iPod to take it with you. It’s a system based on the idea is that free access to music can actually sell more of it.
The way it works is that you download their music player which then scans your computer for music you already have in your iTunes (so you don’t lose any music you already have or have to repurchase). It then allows you to have access to that music by logging in, anywhere, on any computer you wish to use. Like a mobile iTunes. You then can create playlists of your favorite songs by hitting the + button and adding them into a designated music folder (so you can have a workout album, an easy listening album etc.) You can then share your music with friends, similar in a way to myspace with music profiles and the like, blogs, reviews etc.. Your friends are able to listen to your playlists on their computer, whole songs, and all.
Only albums rather than single songs are available for sale at the moment but single tracks are expected to be offered soon. The pricing will be dynamic or based on demand. Lala will offer “sales” but in a different way. Rather than offering low prices to promote new albums, Lala will instead offer low prices for loyalty. “”It’s like the Las Vegas comp system: The more you buy, the better deals you get,” says Mr Nguyen Lala’s founder.
Nguyen says that the site is an “all-in” proposition. If it fails he knows his company will likely go under and they do expect a loss of about $40 million over the next two years, with the amount they will pay for the free streaming. They do however expect to recoup those losses in later music sales and hope the company will grow bigger than iTunes.
Although the service seems to be aimed at iTunes Mr. Nguyan says that it is not about taking iTunes customers but rather getting the CD buyers to switch over to digital.
“Lala is about moving the 90% of the market that’s [still buying CDs] over to digital,” Mr. Nguyen says. “Getting iTunes customers onto Lala would be pointless.”
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