So what if Apple acquires LaLa?
If you’ve used Google to search for music at all in the last few months, then you’re probably acquainted with LaLa. It started out as a CD-swapping service in 2006, but since then floundered, re-launched, and has become a way for users and websites to stream and download music for low prices. It’s gained most of its notoriety in recent months, thanks to partnering with Google as part of their OneBox service. The Google venture brings up songs and albums is an extension of what LaLa has been providing to smaller websites and individuals already: an opportunity to preview songs and albums searched for in full instead of thirty-second snippets, then download them for cheaper than what’s offered through iTunes. (TechCrunch has more on LaLa’s revamped business model.)
A few technology sites have hailed LaLa as the future of distributing digital music, with the Google partnership (which also includes streaming help from MySpace/iLike) solving LaLa’s never-ending problem with gaining more traction. This is why the New York Times news this weekend that Apple has officially struck a deal to buy the digital music start-up comes as a shock to some, because there’s speculation that it may mean the end of what’s been great about LaLa’s services.
TechCrunch writes that the acquisition could mean users wasting their money:
“This could be bad news for Lala users. It’s unlikely that the innovative deals negotiated by Lala will survive through the acquisition. For over a year, Lala users have been purchasing the rights to stream their music an unlimited number of times for ten cents per song. If the deals with the music labels go up in smoke, Lala may lose the right to stream those songs. In other words, all the money users have been spending on web songs may go down the drain.”
Reports that Apple is more interested in picking up LaLa’s engineers and developers more than saving the website itself only fuels the worry. This could mean iTunes has noticed the success of sites like Pandora and is looking to adopt its own streaming model, but will it also mean iTunes are now simply eliminating competition in order to keep prices higher for what used to be cheaper services? After all, now that Apple will own LaLa, the Google searches that were drawing hits for that website could soon become more hits for iTunes, a company that already reaps the benefits of 70% of today’s digital music market sales.
Wired magazine and BetaNews are more optimistic, claiming that if iTunes does plan to develop their own LaLa-like “cloud” model for streaming music, it might also adopt other elements. Making use of LaLa’s payment prepaid credit system instead of selling individual songs could cut down on credit card transaction fees for the company and iTunes users, and programs like Genius could become even more efficient by drawing information from more than just your own library.
How Apple plans to use LaLa is still unknown, but it could herald the biggest change to the iTunes model since its inception. For those who aren’t already LaLa users at the risk of losing money on streaming, the change may only bring improvements to Apple software.
How do you hope that LaLa’s influence affects Apple and iTunes? The New York times is saying the deal’s basically sealed, but until representatives confirm new plans, there’s room for a whole lot more speculation.
