Apple Snatches Up Lala, iTunes Streaming Coming Soon?
By now you've likely heard the news that Apple has snatched up the music streaming service Lala. The service is just the latest online music portal to find itself bought out by a major corporation, with imeem and iLike recently being purchased by MySpace, and with CBS grabbing Last.FM . Lala has never enjoyed the financial or critical success of competitors like Pandora or Rhapsody -- in part thanks to its convoluted payment system. (Users can download songs for $0.79 or $0.89, or pay $0.10 to get unlimited streaming.) It seems pretty clear that Apple doesn't expect to make a ton of money with Lala, so why is it buying the struggling streaming service? Most analysts, including those from AllThingsD and the New York Times, seem to agree that Apple is less interested in the site itself, and more interested in its technology and development team.
With game-changing services like Spotify and Mog making their way to the iPhone, and the success of the Pandora iPhone app, it's clear that Apple needs a method of streaming content to its line of connected mobile devices. It's possible that Apple will use Lala's technology to stream your iTunes library to any computer, iPhone, or iPod touch.
We're just hoping that if such a product does launch, it will include free streaming of all media in your library, not just tracks you've purchased from iTunes or have paid a fee to stream. With even our modest 240-gigabyte music collection, we'd have to spend well over $4,500 just for the right to listen to our own music library (if Apple were to stick with Lala's $0.10 streaming fee). [From: New York Times and AllThingsD, via: Engadget]
