Lala Bets the Company on Free Streaming Music
Written by on June 4th, 2007 in Ajax News.
As we mentioned before, CD swapping service Lala was planning on streaming any music on demand to members for free. Tonight, they’ve launched the service with Warner Music as their first official licensing partner.
Lala will now function as a hub for you music discovery and purchasing. Anyone can listen to free music on Lala, adding full songs to their playlists to listen to as they surf (64-128 kbps). But members who download a plugin can turn Lala into an online music locker that syncs their desktop music libraries to their Lala account. Long uploads aren’t necessary. If Lala already has the song in their library, they simply unlock the file to you online.
Once your music is stored online, You’ll be able to stream your library from anywhere you can access Lala. You’ll be able to purchase individual songs as well as full physical CDs (new/used). All this music will be stored to your account and able to sync directly o your iPod (and only your iPod). Downloading back to your desktop won’t be possible. Future versions will allow users to burn songs directly to CD.
The digital tracks will be watermarked .aac files. They won’t stop you from transferring the songs to friends iPods, but the service will only allow one licensed copy of that watermarked file to work on Lala at a time.
The service launch is part of huge bet Lala is making on the future of online music. Licensing fees alone are expected to cost the company $140 million over the next two years. They’ll need an average revenue of $65 per user per year to cover the cost. But Lala sees the new service as an essential update to the way we experience and purchase music.
Lala’s bet is based on two beliefs: people want to own their music, and they want to sample it in the most interactive way possible. They saw the radio’s passive sampling experience evolving into Napster’s on demand experience. But Napster was illegal, and didn’t let you easily sync music where you wanted it. Lala’s new service promises a higher quality and more comprehensive service than has ever come before.
Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.
Source: TechCrunch
Original Article: http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/122202338/