APPLE LaLa LALA Ping!
If you want on or off the Mac Ping List, Freepmail me.
Posted on 12/08/2009 10:01:03 AM PST by Star Traveler
Posted by Dennis Sellers
Dec 8, 2009 at 7:00am
As you’ve doubtless heard by now Apple has officially bought Lala (purportedly for US$80 million [Star Traveler comment: LaLa Was Bought By Apple For $17 Million, Not $80 Million], less what half of what investors valued the company at in 2008), which, last September, unveiled “the first and only free fully licensed service to instantly provide anywhere web access to an existing music library such as iTunes.” Which begs the question: what is Apple going to do with it?
The company’s goal is probably to allow Apple to implement a new iTunes feature that would allow users to stream their purchased media content remotely. In fact, rumors of such a service surfaced earlier this year.
Purportedly, the service would allow iTunes shoppers to build up a digital video collection (music, movies, TV shows, etc.) without having to worry about the intensive storage space involved. iTunes Replay would, per the rumors, stream music, TV shows and movies purchased on iTunes, so you wouldn’t have to download them after purchasing, freeing up hard drive space.
“One of the main complaints users have with video purchases on iTunes is that they are forced to either throw away their files after watching them, or find a place to store the large files either on their hard drive or by burning them to DVDs,” notes AppleInsider. “By storing their video content for them and allowing users to stream it for viewing as often as they want, Apple would essentially be offering a media center alternative.”
Currently, the iTunes media player doesn’t let you stream complete songs, just 30-second snippets. Lala technology could change this. And, as noted by PC World, Apple’s Genius feature, which uses your existing library to recommend new tracks, would be more useful if you could actually listen to all the suggestions.
PC World also thinks that Apple will integrate Lala’s social features into iTunes (which makes sense) and release an app (as well as an iPhone/iPod touch version) that would “let you stream tracks forever at a rate of 10 cents per song.” The latter I’m not sure about. The streaming songs say in an online “locker,” but are accessible via any device with a browser and Internet connection. This raises the possibility of Apple losing revenue if some folks stop purchasing downloads and rely totally on streaming instead. On the other hand, maybe most folks are like me and want to purchase and “own” music, movies and videos, whether the purchases are physical or digital.
Apple care specialist and president of Boston-based Tech Superpowers Michael Oh tells eWeek that he thinks Apple is certainly planning on capitalizing on the music streaming market, “the only type of digital music service that has been able to gain traction, either through subscription-based or ad-supported models.”
No matter how large a playlist may be, people will continue to want to hear, and share, new music, Oh argues, and being able to chose your own tracks is essential to the market uptake for streaming. “Once people have the ability to choose their tracks, then they don’t seem to care whether they offer that music or not,” he tells eWeek. However, Oh notes that the other piece element of digital streaming success stories is the ability to lure customers into buying that music once they’ve streamed it. “It is quite interesting how there’s a direct tie between new music that you like and still wanting it mobile, so you’ll actually end up downloading it,” he says.
If he’s right, I think Apple will go the subscription route and not the ad-supported streaming route. The latter hasn’t proved to be terribly successful, as far as I can tell; look at the death of SpiralFrog and Ruckus.
paidContent is probably onto something when it notes that Apple almost certainly won’t launch a radical new web-based streamer or locker distinct from the core iTunes brand. The site says that, more likely, we can expect such features as: integrating remote music access with the MobileMe suite that now offers web-based mail, calendar, contacts, photos, gallery and backup but no songs (where music goes in iTunes, expect remotely accessed movies and TV to follow).
On the other hand, Ars Technica thinks Apple acquired Lala for the talent, not technology to launch a music streaming service any time soon. The site says that the company offers no technology that Apple needs to purchase, and comes with licensing issues. Besides, Lala never turned a profit.
“So, it’s difficult to see anything tangible that the acquisition provides Apple,” writes Ars Technica. “The alternative take, one that a different unnamed source fed to The New York Times, is that this acquisition follows the PA Semi model. In that case, Apple bought a fabless PowerPC design firm, but not with the intention of actually using any of its existing products; instead, all indications are that it simply wanted access to the engineering talent, which it’s now deploying to provide improved ARM chip designs for future portable devices. On balance, the purchase appears to give Apple the chance to bring in engineers that will be useful now, and could be even more so if it chooses to enter streaming or subscription services. But, for the moment, there’s nothing about the purchase that seems to provide the company with any key technologies it was missing in terms of diving into markets. Until another company demonstrates that there’s money to be made (or iPods to be sold) through streaming, there’s no reason to think that a move of this sort is immanent.”
My take: after mulling over all the evidence and speculation, I think 2010 will see Apple launch the so-called iTunes Replay. And it will be subscription, not ad, based.
Just a little additional and/or another take on the LaLa news and purchase by Apple...
ping
Lala stopped the CD trading, which is the only reason I used it.
Not sure how this technology is different from Pandora, except Pandora is better. Your pick what type of music you like song by song (you give each song a thumbs up or thumbs down) and it finds others songs that are of the same type. After a while you have a customized radio station that plays only the music you like.
Oh, and its FREE.
Lala stopped the CD trading, which is the only reason I used it.
We don't know, quite yet, what Apple is going to do with LaLa. That's always the kind of mystery that is with Apple and figuring out what is going to happen in the future... :-)
Not sure how this technology is different from Pandora, except Pandora is better.
To tell you the truth, I had never heard of it before (neither the competitors). The first I heard was with Apple's purchase.
And as it usually is with Apple, you never know what they're going to turn it into. Whatever it is, you can bet they will be at the front of the market with it and it will burst on the scene like gangbusters, when Apple has finished doing to it what they are going to do.
For all I know, it may shut down now, and then something else come up in the future, when Apple finishes its work.
After a while you have a customized radio station that plays only the music you like.
I don't think (from what I'm reading) that Apple is doing this, a customized radio station to listen to the music that you like.
What I think is a possibility (but no one really knows for sure, at this stage) is that a iPod/iPhone user who can't have all his music (that he has at home) on either of those devices (because of space limitations), may be able to access "his own music" via the "cloud" and through this service. So, this would be access to one's own music.
In addition, there may be another and additional component where you can also listen to music that you very specifically pick (song by song) and hear it play (as opposed to the generic music that you like).
So, it's going to be a "featured packed service" I would say (and say, by knowing "Apple")... :-)
Oh, and its FREE.
What I described up above, I don't think you can get "free" from it... :-)
I just learned about Pandora (i hope its not like me coming on here and telling everyone about a cool video site called YouTube-LOL)
Heres what it does:
“Pandora has no concept of genre, user connections or ratings. It doesn’t care what other people who like Gomez also like. When you create a radio station on Pandora, it uses a pretty radical approach to delivering your personalized selections: Having analyzed the musical structures present in the songs you like, it plays other songs that possess similar musical traits.
Pandora relies on a Music Genome that consists of 400 musical attributes covering the qualities of melody, harmony, rhythm, form, composition and lyrics. It’s a project that began in January 2000 and took 30 experts in music theory five years to complete. The Genome is based on an intricate analysis by actual humans (about 20 to 30 minutes per four-minute song) of the music of 10,000 artists from the past 100 years. The analysis of new music continues every day since Pandora’s online launch in August 2005. As of May 2006, the Genome’s music library contains 400,000 analyzed songs from 20,000 contemporary artists. “
I entered in one of my favorite songs and it instantly started playing song after song of old favorites I had forgotten about or hadn’t heard in years. The drawback is you can’t go to a specific song-its more like hitting “random play” on your MP3 player that contains all your good music.
Thanks - Checking Pandora out now ... Stevie Ray Vaughn brings up Eric Clapton - so far two thumbs up! ;-)
It looks interesting... :-)
We’ve been using Pandora at home for a couple of years now and like being able to customize my “channels.” There are interruptions for ads now and again, and if you don’t interact with it for a long while, it will pause and ask if you’re still listening. I like being able to give a “Thumbs-Down” on songs I don’t like and I don’t have to worry about them playing again. For a while there, the song selection seemed pretty redundant, hearing the same songs each time I fired up the site, but it seems like they’ve added more music lately and the variety of artists is wider.
Thx! ;-)
If you want on or off the Mac Ping List, Freepmail me.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.