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Posted on 05/01/2010 12:33:35 AM PDT by nickcarraway
Four months after buying Lala Media's popular online music service for a reported $80 million, Apple is pulling the plug on the 5-year-old site.
Lala notified its users in an e-mail Friday morning of the shutdown. Apple Inc. spokesman Jason Roth confirmed the plans, but he declined to say whether the Cupertino, Calif., company would resurrect the service under Apple's iTunes brand.
Lala lets users listen to any song in its catalog in its entirety once for free. After that, listeners can sample the song again for 30 seconds or buy a digital download of the song for 89 cents. What separated Lala from other music services, however, was its concept of a "Web song." Listeners could play a song an unlimited number of times for 10 cents, as long as they were connected to the site.
With iTunes, downloaded songs are stored on a user's computer and can be copied to other computers and devices. Web song files sit on Lala's computers and can be played only while the listener is connected to the Lala site. This is sometimes called "cloud" access.
There has been much speculation about whether Apple would use Lala's technology to create its own music-streaming subscription service to compete with Rhapsody or MOG, which charge monthly fees for on-demand access to their extensive song catalogs. Another possibility is that Apple could use Lala's cloud approach to let customers who purchase a song from iTunes also have online access to that song in a sort of pay-once-play-anywhere idea.
(Excerpt) Read more at latimes.com ...
Something about Apple’s purchase of LaLa ... :-)
May 1, 2010
By Andy Patrizio
Apple may be taking the next step in embracing a streaming and cloud-storage service for iTunes, if pundits are reading correctly into Apple's shuttering this week of Lala.com.
The Mac, iPad and iPhone maker purchased Lala.com, a streaming music site, in December. But this week it posted a notice on its front page informing subscribers it will be shutting down the service on May 31 and will not accept new users.
To many industry observers, the signs point to Apple's move to merge its streaming and cloud storage service into iTunes, giving users a way to back up their purchase to the cloud.
Lala is aimed at helping users discover music and purchase DRM-free songs. A plugin handles downloads and synching the music file with a user's own music library.
Its most unique ability allows a user to make their entire music collection available remotely, through the site -- freeing them from having to load the entire contents of their iTunes library onto an iPod or iPhone. If a user owns a song and it is on their local computer, Lala makes it available to them from any location, while it requires them to upload their songs only if they don't already exist on the site.
Apple's purchase initially led to considerable speculation that the company intended to move iTunes from being just a desktop client to being a cloud-based service. Back in January, for instance, The Wall Street Journal wrote about Lala and said that Apple could launch a cloud-based service as early as June.
Apple did not respond to a request for comment on potential Lala plans.
The timing of Lala's closure may signal another step along this path, just ahead of Apple CEO Steve Jobs's appearance at the D Conference in the first week of June -- potentially the perfect place for him to discuss such an initiative. The following week is the Worldwide Developer Conference in San Francisco, where Apple is expected to make some news, potentially announcing a new iPhone, and possibly a revised iTunes as well.
Analyst Ben Bajarin with Creative Strategies said he wouldn't be surprised if Apple's cloud-based changes to iTunes begins taking public shape by June. "I didn't expect the [Lala] service to last much longer. I expect the option to have your library backed up to the cloud so can access it without the need for a local player has been the strategy all along," Bajarin told InternetNews.com.
But he thinks it might also show up at Apple's traditional fall iPod event.
"They've had Lala for a while, so they may announce a new service at WWDC or around their iPod event, which would be more in the fall," he said. "They've got two options, but I think it's a safe bet it will happen this year."
Andy Patrizio is a senior editor at InternetNews.com, the news service of Internet.com, the network for technology professionals.
So Jobs, just wanted to kill the competition. It will backfire eventually.
Ummmm..., you don't know Apple very well then ... LOL ...
They don't buy companies to shut down competition; they buy companies to develop better services and better products and to make more wildly successful devices that the consumers love to buy... :-)
If you always remember this -- Apple buys companies to improve services and improve products -- you'll always be "ahead of the curve" in understanding Apple ...
With Apple continuing to build a $1 billion data center in Maiden, N.C., that rivals the largest such facilities in the world, some executives in the online music industry believe that Apple is poised to announce an Internet-powered version of iTunes that would do away with the need to download songs.
By RYAN NAKASHIMA, AP Business Writer
Fri Apr 30, 6:35 pm ET
LOS ANGELES – Apple Inc. is shutting down its newly bought Lala online music service amid speculation it is creating a way for iTunes customers to listen to songs stored on distant computers.
The move comes just weeks before an annual conference for developers in San Francisco on June 7 at which the secretive company tends to announce big news. Last year, it used the conference to unveil the latest version of its popular iPhone, the 3GS.
With Apple continuing to build a $1 billion data center in Maiden, N.C., that rivals the largest such facilities in the world, some executives in the online music industry believe that Apple is poised to announce an Internet-powered version of iTunes that would do away with the need to download songs.
Such a move would pit Apple, the largest online music retailer, against smaller companies that offer ways to deliver music to mobile devices using "cloud computing," a remote-storage system that potentially challenges iTunes and its reliance on downloads and personal storage space.
"Whatever they bought Lala for, it is likely to be integrated into iTunes," said Michael Gartenberg, a partner at technology consulting firm Altimeter Group. "It's no surprise they're shutting this down."
[... see more of the article at the link ... ]
Please tell me, why, oh why, they would sell me a well-designed storage device (iPod) and then REQUIRE me to have all the files on my storage device, on my computers's hard drive too! That is the height of stupidity. Ideally, I am using my storage device as a storage device. But if I had to, I'd want to back it up on an external hard drive. The last place I want it on is my computer's hard drive. But Apple makes me clutter up my computer with every file on my iPod. In other ways, iPod's a great, but that is truly wrong.
Apple owns LaLa. it is not competition, by definition.
Well..., you might consider it a storage device, but I don’t think Apple wants its customers to consider it any more than a “player” ... since they strongly urge owners of these devices to backup, backup and backup ... :-)
Personally I have never considered it a storage device, so that the information there would be safe enough. I don’t think anyone should think of the iPod that way. It’s a mistake that leads to disappointed customers, when they find that this is the only place they had a song ... (and that’s happened before, because you can load it up and erase everything on your hard drive on your computer, too, which is a big, big mistake).
I also think part of the new service that Apple will be offering may very well be that kind of thing where they will serve as your “storage space” for all your songs and then you can have it only on your iPod. But, that’s yet to come ... keep tuned in to Apple, because I think you’ll see that coming soon.
iTunes will have to change some of their strategy soon. When they started, they were the best. I’ve moved to http://www.audible.com for my audiobooks for two reasons. First, the books are usually cheaper. Second, they’ll let me download a book I’ve purchased at any time.
With iTunes, you download once, and if you lose it, your bad. Nothing against iTunes, but if I can get better service for less price, I’m using it.
I dunno about cloud based, but I like the idea of my downloads being stored safely, where I can get them if something happens to my original.
Members get iTunes credits...
If you want on or off the Mac Ping List, Freepmail me.
Apple didn’t sell you a primary storage device. Oh, that might be how you use it, but that’s not what they’re selling.
Apple’s philosophy — and I agree — is that a mobile device shouldn’t contain your only copy of anything. They’re too easily lost, stolen or damaged. Even the iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad, which are pretty capable devices on their own, are designed to be paired with and regularly backed up to a computer.
And while the default behavior is to store music on your computer’s main hard drive, you can store the entire iTunes library on an external drive. You can also store individual songs on an external drive, a server volume, or even an optical disc and use iTunes to catalog them — you’re going to want that drive mounted when you sync, of course.
Get real. Apple bought LaLa to kill it after a decent interval. It’s absurd to think LaLa had some kind of tech the Cupertino Communists needed.
LaLa was very nice...RIP LaLa and f Steve Jobs
Jobs probably bought LaLa to keep google from buying and building on it. The Cupertino Communist Criminals perhaps got some “rights to broadcast” from the LaLa purchase
Nice try but a big FAIL on logic
You’ll find quite a few similar articles like this in the tech press and none of them have my name as author ... LOL
Must be some broadcast rights in LaLa. I can’t see how the CCC (Cupertino Communist Collective) needs any LaLa technology
Must be some broadcast rights in LaLa. I can’t see how the CCC (Cupertino Communist Collective) needs any LaLa technology
Well, it can be other things, too. For instance, when Apple bought SoundJam MP, they got a head-start in building the software base for iTunes (as that's what it was when it started). In addition they also got the developer. He worked with Apple on their iTunes program (don't know if he's still there or not).
In addition, with an on-going entity like LaLa a company can also be buying experience from running that. No matter how big you are (the buying company), if you haven't been running a particular kind of business, there are always mistakes to be made. The other company has probably already made those mistakes, thereby saving the "buying company" making the same mistakes twice over again.
Besides mistakes, you've got a crew that is "up and going and ready to run" with the ball, right off the bat. Even if the model is slightly different than what it was before, it's still a benefit.
And so, it doesn't have to be straight technology, itself. And actually, "people" are quite important in this sort of deal, even if you're talking about technology, because these same people that put their heads together to create the necessary technology (or piece it together from other sources) -- they are going to be continuing to "work their magic" in the new company that bought them, too.
This is pretty much in line with what Apple has done all along, in advancing its products and services with the right mix of people and software and technology from other sources, when they buy them (companies or products or software or technology or hiring people).
And with Apple being so wildly successful in doing all this -- there's nothing wrong with being a great example of what good ole American free enterprise and capitalism can do ... :-)
I take it you would have been thrilled if Apple went broke?
I live in LaLa Land. Maybe I should look into it.
Still lovin’ my new 3G iPad though. People keep stopping me too look at it.
Well, Steve is the Liberal [bad], Gates is the Conservative [good] /sarc
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