Lala Shut Down by Apple: A Sad Day for Frugal Music Lovers
I just received an email that Lala is being shut down by Apple, who bought Lala 5 months ago, on May 31st. A year ago, I made the switch from iTunes to Lala. Now, unfortunately, it looks like I will be forced to switch back (or preferably find an alternative).
Usually, when a big multinational company like Apple gobbles up a startup with a superior service and platform, one of two things happens:
- They exhibit anti-competitive behavior and shut it down because people were starting to realize that their own service was inferior and they felt threatened by the startup.
- They embrace the new technology and platform and integrate it into their own, then re-brand it.
Why this is a Bad Day for Music Lovers
You may see some embracing and good will, but given Apple’s recent streak of anti-competitive and closed source behaviors, I think we’ll be looking at the latter more than the former. Apple has largely gotten away with some of their moves because they’ve been viewed as the Microsoft alternative and they’ve put out some pretty cool products (until the iPad). They are no more consumer focused than Microsoft at this point.
This is very unfortunate. Lala provided a way for users to preview an entire album (not just 30 second cuts) for FREE. iTunes, in comparison, is a clunky, inferior service that intentionally creates roadblocks for paying users.
Switching From Lala to…
Given my dissatisfaction with iTunes, I am already on the lookout for alternatives. Here’s what I’ve found:
- Napster: Ah, yes, good ole’ Napster. They are still hanging around, believe it or not. And they actually have a pretty good offer right now. For $15, you get 15 MP3s and unlimited streaming music for 3 months. They are probably the most ‘Lala-esque’ in that they offer free streaming in addition to mp3 downloads.
- EMusic: Strong indie focus, from what I’ve been reading. They offer a free daily download, and right now they have a special offer of 35 free downloads and a free audio book with a free trial. The downside is that they do not offer streaming.
- Grooveshark: Grooveshark is a free search and stream model (no downloads). For $3/mo. you can have ads removed.
- Pandora: Free streaming with ads. The downside to Pandora is that you can only choose the artist and not the song to stream. They also offer a paid upgrade service with a desktop application.
Are you as bummed as I am about Lala’s fate? What alternatives are you/will you be using?
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Can not access itunes at work because of the network security. That’s a big issue with an iphone. I found a program called mediamonkey that basically allows you to do the same thing as itunes and you can transfer and convert songs. There is a free version and a few paid versions. I’m open for other suggestions and following along the blog.
Best of luck ~ Shawn
Grooveshark FTW!
http://www.spotify.com/ only in UK, but I’d love to use something like this!
http://audiobox.fm/ still in early stages, but if things are hendled well it should be real nice soon.
There are a couple others, but nothing I can remember or that were good enough to use.
I think I’ll be using songbird for a while… or just last.fm
Apple is seriously pissing me off right now
I have 27,784 songs on LaLa. There model of matching songs that you already own was quite elegant. Of course Apple will not duplicate this model because it poses too much of a threat to there model which depends on me buying their hardware and paying ten times as much to listen to a song.
Last December, when I heard that Apple was buying LaLa, I was pretty sure this was bad news. True to form they have proven that it was purely an anti-competitive anti-marketplace move. They spent millions of dollars to shut down a competitor. They haven’t made a serious attempt to leverage this asset to improve their own offerings.
I am equally dismayed at how most of the press seems totally clueless about how this is a predatory move. One “reporter” even went so far as to conjecture that this was a pretty good deal for LaLa users!
I have checked out GrooveShark based on your recommendation. It doesn’t seem nearly as elegant as LaLa, but it might prove to be a decent substitute. I wonder how long it will take to add my entire collection of music the the library there.
Yes, it may seem like a big bully move right now, but lets just wait and see what Apple does this September with its annual iPod/iTunes refresh. I’m pretty sure if Apple could let users listen to a song once for free, they would. It’s the record labels that put up all the roadblocks. I’m confident we will see some sort of web-based iTunes in the next year.
I personally like Amazon.com for downloading music. I’ve found the prices decent,there’s no DRM, and searching for music is the same as searching for anything else on Amazon. Unfortunately, the actual downloading mechanism is a little clunky but I haven’t had any serious problems (and you certainly don’t need to download a massive program a la iTunes).
Amazon also has the 30 second preview, but you can easily find full length versions of many songs on youtube or similar sites if you want a longer preview.
When it comes to playing your music, I highly recommend the program Foobar2000. I’d say it’s the VLC of audio players. While iTunes took 15 seconds to open up and load my library of music, Foobar does it nearly instantly. The program works extremely well immediately and is also completely customizable. You can even download a component to make it sync with your iPod.
Alternative to Lala or grooveshark. Over 8 million songs streaming all free. You can create your own play-list and share it with friends. Fully integrated with Facebook. Pandora is a recommendation engine based on an algorithm ours is a recommendation engine based on what your friends are listening to.
http://www.myfriendsandmusic.com
http://apps.facebook.com/friendsandmusic/
Check out http://www.mog.com way better than any of the other lala alternatives and the closest site to doing all that lala does. They have not implemented the user to user reccomendation system yet but it is in the works. They also have some cool features lala didnt have. Its not lala… but its close.
Amazon also has the 30 second preview, but you can easily find full length versions of many songs on youtube or similar sites if you want a longer preview.
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