Free Republic

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....

Two weeks ago, I asked “Has Apple killed off indie music service Lala.com?” Several commenters in the Talkback section scoffed at that idea. Today, Apple made it official.

Apple beat Google to LaLa deal after failed bid for AdMob - report By Brian Garner Published: Thursday, December 10, 2009 at 08:00 PM EST Google was in serous discussions with music streaming service Lala before it was sold to Apple earlier this month. Google and Apple have been battling to purchase some of the same companies in an attempt to gain leverage in the highly competitive tech sector. According to the Wall Street Journal, Google had been in serious talks with online music streaming company La La Media Inc. before Apple closed the $85 million deal earlier this month....

Lala purchase may hint at the coming of the rumored iTunes Replay service 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...

"LALA PRESENTS A VIDEO FROM THE IMU" 13 September 2009 SNIPPET: "Yes, the forum user's name is 'Lala' and the video is called Al-Thabat wal-Aidad (Jundullah).AVI. Titles are in German."