Apple Acquired Lala Music Service to Shut Down May 31st

[tk421]

An excerpt from the email they sent to customers:

In appreciation of your support over the last five years, you will receive a credit in the amount of your Lala web song purchases for use on Apple's iTunes Store. If you purchased and downloaded mp3 songs from Lala, those songs will continue to play as part of your local music library.

Remaining wallet balances and unredeemed gift cards will be converted to iTunes Store credit (or can be refunded upon request). Gift cards can be redeemed on Lala until May 31st.

I enjoyed Lala, but OF COURSE Apple is going to be folding Lala features into iTunes! Do people really think they bought them just to stop a competitor? iTunes has something like 70% market share of digital music and something like 25% market share of ALL music, including physical media. What do you think Lala had? I doubt it affected iTunes more than half a percent!

 

[kas23]

Look at intrinsity, n pa semi for some idea as what I'm talking about.

Yeas, look at P. A. Semi. What has Apple done with them? Nothing yet. And that acquisition was years ago.

The current processor in the iPad was designed by Intrinsity and made by Samsung. Worse off is that Intrinsity designed the chip before Apple bought them. It's not like Apple bought them and helped them innovate. Looks like they will not be designing anymore chips for anyone besides Apple.

 

[sishaw]

Another thought

Maybe neither a streaming service nor elimination of competition. Maybe the main motive was nothing more than acquiring Lala's music catalog and list of customers. In other words, a straightforward corporate acquisition without either grandiose plans or nefarious intentions. What do folks think?

 

[cyb1851]

apple erased my free lala credits

I still had 49 free credits from signing up with lala, but Apple erased them this morning. That's just wrong.

 

[japanime]

I signed up for Lala a couple of years ago and have really enjoyed their service, and am sorry to see it go. But I'm also optimistic that Apple will roll out something even better. Looking forward to seeing how this develops.

 

[Sweetfeld28]

Yep, there goes my Lala account. Nice.

 

[brian.gillespie]

Cool, this means iTunes streaming coming with 4.0. Love it!

 

[paul4339]

Whatever Apple does, it likes to charge (for profit), even if it turns out to be mediocre (mobile-me).
Lala $0.10 per streamed song - 'forever' - was way too cheap. Plus honoring 'forever' can cause problems. Great for the customer, though... and also great for startup companies to quickly gain a following. Not always good for the getting a permanent revenue stream from a customer. (unless they collect the info, type of music you like, when you like to listen to it, etc and try to indirectly recover costs).

 

[*LTD*]

I still had 49 free credits from signing up with lala, but Apple erased them this morning. That's just wrong.

They were attached to the LaLa service. No more LaLa service (what's the reason to keep it going?) So, no more free LaLa-specific credits.

Get over it.

Anyway, wasn't LaLa doing poorly before Apple acquired them?

Oh wait, yes they were.

http://techcrunch.com/2009/12/04/apple-acquires-lala/

A few other interesting things to note. This acquisition comes a little more than a month after Lala was integrated into Google’s OneBox and Facebook’s gift store. Lala may well have been viewing these launches as last-chance efforts to find a path to profitability. Given these reports that Lala’s “prospects for turning a profit in the short term were dim”, it looks like those launches may not have gone as well as Lala hoped.

 

[k2spitfire88]

When will Apple acquire Microsoft and shut it down for the releasing of a new holy feline system?

+1000.

And how could people not see this coming? Apple wasn't going to run Lala as is, obviously. It's most likely going to be integrated into iTunes at some point, IMO, and they obviously wanted Lala's customers. Should be interesting to see how it works out.

 

[Minimoose 360]

Nobody I know has ever heard of Lala....



Oh well.

EDIT:

You're*

Grammar Nazi pls go, nobody thinks you're cool.

 

[vrillusions]

Maybe I am a little old fashioned, but I want a physical copy of my music. My Ipod and CD player still work while server service is occurring. My Ipod still plays music when ATT DSL at work goes offline (yes they suck at wired and wireless where i live). Power outages dont stop my charged Ipod.

+1

I did get a couple of the NIN albums he released on his site and did the download option... but they're completely drm free and I just have them backed up in a few places including burning the mp3's to a cd.

 

[havi89]

Music Reform

I LOVE LALA!

I'M GONNA BRING LALA BACK!

x]


I just don't understand why music has to be so expensive. .99 cents does add up and especially if your a music junkie like me. x]

We should celebrate and dance ONE MORE TIME with cheaper music! (Daft Punk)

Celebrate and Dance So Free..


-havii


I'm down for a music reform!

 

[skyehill]

They were attached to the LaLa service. No more LaLa service (what's the reason to keep it going?) So, no more free LaLa-specific credits.

Get over it.

Anyway, wasn't LaLa doing poorly before Apple acquired them?

Oh wait, yes they were.

http://techcrunch.com/2009/12/04/apple-acquires-lala/

A few other interesting things to note. This acquisition comes a little more than a month after Lala was integrated into Google’s OneBox and Facebook’s gift store. Lala may well have been viewing these launches as last-chance efforts to find a path to profitability. Given these reports that Lala’s “prospects for turning a profit in the short term were dim”, it looks like those launches may not have gone as well as Lala hoped.

Hey look, the Apple Fanboy loves it. Surprise.

 

[cyb1851]

They were attached to the LaLa service. No more LaLa service (what's the reason to keep it going?) So, no more free LaLa-specific credits.

Get over it.

Actually, you're wrong. Lala service is in place until May 31 for existing users. The agreement I signed when I created a Lala account said that I had 50 free credits to use while I had my Lala account. If I have until May 31 to use my account, Apple should give me the credits to use while I continue to have a Lala account.

Apple hasn't mentioned anywhere that they were doing away with the free credits. They could have notified users that they were being eliminated, giving a grace period before they were removed. It's poor form.

 

[Mattie Num Nums]

I am on Lala right now listening to Walls of Jericho by Helloween. Lala was awesome because you could find some really old off the wall stuff, listen to the entire CD, and purchase. The worst thing is buying a CD because that 30 second clip sounded bad ass to find out the rest of the song was garbage. What lala did was offered people the ability to try-before-you-buy without resulting to torrents. If Apple integrates with itunes I hope it stays web based. Lala was a great service but I knew this day would come once Apple bought them out.

 

[johnmcboston]

I just don't understand why music has to be so expensive. .99 cents does add up and especially if your a music junkie like me. x]

Why do you think Apple got rid of the itunes shopping cart? How many times you threw stuff in, got to check out to find $85 worth of music, and put half of it back. With instant buy you tend to spend more...

 

[skyehill]

Nobody I know has ever heard of Lala....



Oh well.

EDIT:


Grammar Nazi pls go, nobody thinks you're cool.

So the people you know are clueless. Good job.

 

[misterc0w]

Mwaaaaaaahahahahahaaaaaaaaaaaa...

I sense groundbreaking [and devastating for Apple competition] announcements and developments coming at D8 and WWDC.

SJ: All your streams and clouds are belong to us!

I think that is a good thought. But iTunes streaming is probably going to go along with iTunes 10 release. Would they release a new iTunes version a few weeks before a new iPhone launch?

 

[Mattie Num Nums]

I think that is a good thought. But iTunes streaming is probably going to go along with iTunes 10 release. Would they release a new iTunes version a few weeks before a new iPhone launch?

Maybe if streaming is built into the new iPhone OS. That would be cool and a step in the right direction. The thing that always scares me with Apple is, the intention is good, but the results are different, its great for me as a shareholder, but it's not always great for the techie in me.

 

[Jaro65]

wow apple is going nuts.

No they're not. Gotta kill the old service before resurrecting it as a revolutionary and magical new service.

 

[goatless]

This is just me writing about an idea, no basis in truth (though I hope people can see where Im coming from)

Within iTunes is the option to use Apple Genius. This 'knows' all the songs within your iTunes library. Say if Apple could use this data so you can stream a copy of a song you own on iTunes from a centralised Apple server (a copy of each song is held by Apple). This removes the need for large capacity iPhones/ iPod Touches/ iPads. Just a thought, but would seem like a natural evolution.

Sorry, but I read somewhere that there's "^^^ Absolutely zero possibility of this happening EVER"

 

[JAT]

Apple buying and destroying companies....they're quickly becoming the old Microsoft. Going to be fun watching Apple fall under the weight of their own tyrannical idiocy. Mostly it's just fun watching the Apple fanbabies defend these actions.

The problem with Microsoft is they make crap. (Win7 may finally be decent, 25 years after Apple's was) If you don't like business transactions in the 20th-21st centuries, it may be time to find a shack in the woods.

Guaranteed Apple is starting another similar service within iTunes. They should have announced the demise and the beginning at the same time, though.

 

[LoganT]

There's a lot of melodrama in these posts.

 

[Mattie Num Nums]

The problem with Microsoft is they make crap.

I take it you don't use Exchange, AppV, MSSQL, Sharepoint, or Active Directory?