10 ms·
Apple killed lala.com
- todd3834 17y agoI just got the following email: This is an automated message. Please do not reply. Dear _____, The Lala service will be shut down on May 31st. 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. Click here or visit Lala.com/support for more information, or to view Lala's Terms of Service. Thank you. Lala ©2005-2010 la la media, inc. All rights reserved.
- todd3834 17y agoIt would have really been nice if they would wait until iTunes in the cloud launched
- cmelbye 17y agoAnd then automatically migrate over Lala users to the new iTunes service.
- dandelany 17y agoWow. This is... infuriating. I've purchased ~$100 (~75 albums) worth of streaming albums on Lala and I'm not happy to see them converted into ten albums worth of iTunes credits. I have to say: so far I've been really unimpressed with the recent efforts to paint Apple as the new "Big Brother". But to purchase a company which is pioneering new methods of music distribution, and almost immediately shut them down and force their purchases to fit your distribution model is anti-innovation, monopolistic, and completely contrary to the kind of "different thinking" that has gotten Apple to where it is today. Utterly depressing.
- tjogin 17y agoYeah that sucks, but maybe there's a lesson to be learned here: Don't purchase streaming services for a one-time cost. Streaming services should be subscription services. Just don't do this. Let the industry know that if you're to purchase something, you should have infinite access to it — otherwise it should be a subscription service. Btw, Apple probably wouldn't buy a streaming service unless they're planning to offer one themselves. Not that it changes your situation in any way. Just saying that they probably didn't do it just to shut it down.
- deleted 17y ago[deleted]
- angstrom 17y agoThey might if Google was starting to do business with them. I wonder how this affects their integrated search with lala for streaming results: http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=MGMT&aq=f&aqi=g10&aql=&oq=&gs_rfai= http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=MGMT&aq=f&a...
- darrenkopp 17y agoyup. this is why i use zune pass. monthly streaming subscription AND 10 free song purchases a month (DRM free)
- edj 17y agoAnother good alternative is emusic. $10/month for 30 DRM-free downloads. Only downside is it's only independent labels, so no Rolling Stones. Lots to choose among, though. Their website says they've got 6 million tracks from 60,000 record labels.
- omnivore 17y agoI use Zune Pass too and I've been generally satisfied with it. It's a lot better now than it used to be, almost to the point where I could probably ditch my Rhapsody subscription but Rhapsody proves pretty useful and has been venerable for ages now. I never could get into lala and I'm glad I didn't after this move.
- rcbuse 17y agoAs far as I'm concerned, LaLa died when it stopped being the CD Trading community.
- jwinter 17y agoIt's funny, the same thing happened to anywhere.fm, of which lala is basically an updated version. They made a fun way to listen to all of your own music online, they got bought out, and they disappeared. Maybe YC should fund another anywhere.fm?
- jorgecastillo 17y agoSome people here really make me laugh. Hating business for what business do is silly. As the saying goes vote with your dollars and convince family/friends to vote with you. If you really feel laws should be changed write to your congressman and/or vote a different congressmen next election.
- pontifier 17y agoWow. I was so mad when they launched. I thought for a while that they had implemented a system I had been working on, and they got 10M in funding. Then I saw how they decided to work it and I laughed. I knew they would fail eventually when they decided to do what everyone else is doing. I may be slow to get to market, but the entire online music market is still stupid, and nobody is doing what I will.
- ahoyhere 17y agoThe founders killed lala.com because they sold out to Apple. Just like the founders killed Jaiku, MeasureMap, Dodgeball, etc. and any number of other web services we've used and loved... til they got bought. If you want to be angry at somebody, be angry at the founders for "selling out" - for going for the big payday. That, after all, what most people here on HN are aiming for, right? So how can you begrudge them for getting what they wanted?
- brandonkm 17y agoIn the case of Jaiku, at least they open sourced the entire application. Can't even begin to describe how much I've learned from the Jaiku source code.
- nkohari 17y agoThat's not a reason to be angry at someone. If you're upset that they "sold out," go build your own. Most of us are in this to not only build cool things, but to make money.
- robryan 17y agoTrue, it depends on the service your offering though, in a case like this the right thing would be to ensure (baring bankruptcy) that the streaming will be available long term, or be more upfront with people that it is limited. While it is true there is the offer you can't refuse type deal I'm not a fan of some founders who you hear a lot about their big plans and the quality of the product or service they are providing, you get interested in purchasing and the next second they are gone.
- cageface 17y agoNo, I'm actually angry at Apple for using it's bank balance to squash a competitor. Should I expect the Lala founders to be saints and walk away from a bit payout? No? Should I expect Apple to compete on quality instead of abusing its position? Apparently not. Jobs is a dangerous, megalomaniac demagogue.
- 17y ago
- look_lookatme 17y agoFirst reaction is this sucks, second is I hope iTunes.com is HTML5, else I'm screwed.
- goodside 17y ago(Edit: Never mind. This is just for unspent credit. Resume being pissed.) For everyone pissed about being forced to have iTunes credit: You can also have a check instead. Log in and read the fine print. You just have to fill out your mailing address on a form.
- thehodge 17y agoIsn't that only for unused credits, not for credit which has been used on songs
- mumrah 17y agoHere's the email from Lala http://i.imgur.com/LzQ3l.png http://i.imgur.com/LzQ3l.png
- waxman 17y agoiTunes Cloud TBA at WWDC? I'm excited to free up some hard-drive space.
- pedalpete 17y agoThat was my initial thought, but why leave the 1 week gap where people will try to find another solution to replace lala? You'd think shutdown LaLa on June 7th? Also, do lala users need to know about the change in advance? why not transfer them over to the new service and send a message saying what's changed? This is kinda looking like myspace/imeem
- mikeyur 17y agoI've been much more interested in what Spotify is doing. I think if they could get into North America before Apple, they'd do quite well. At the moment I'm stuck with a UK VPN. I've been really happy with the service, it just feels like the future.
- underdown 17y agoWow. Shitty. Didn't those of us who used lala join specifically because we hated itunes?
- aasarava 17y agoExactly.
- deleted 17y ago[deleted]
- TheBranca18 17y agoAnyone tried Grooveshark (http://listen.grooveshark.com http://listen.grooveshark.com)? I know it's in Flash but on first glance it seems to be a combination of Lala and Slacker.
- lionhearted 17y agoGrooveshark is good, I switched to it here in China. Outside of China on fast internet, I can usually find a playlist of what I want to listen to on Youtube, so I just do that. For Europeans, Spotify is far and away the best music service I've ever used, but it's not available outside of Europe yet.
- jessriedel 17y agoGrooveshark is great (though it occasionally is missing music). But it's only a matter of time before it is shut down.
- gte910h 17y agoWhile I hope your second sentence is false, my wife has that program up playing in our condo about 1/3 of the time.
- code_duck 17y agoYes, grooveshark is quite fine.
- cageface 17y agoThis is definitely the last straw. I use Lala daily and it's been a great way to discover new music and bring my collection everywhere I go without having to copy a big library around. I am done as an Apple customer and will do everything I can to make sure all my friends understand the nature of the company before buying any of their products. This is not the scrappy, innovative underdog Apple we all used to love. This is a nascent suffocating and abusive monopoly that deserves an organized boycott.
- protomyth 17y agoWhat did you expect to happen? A small startup decides it is in their best interest to sell-out to a big company. Google has closed startups. What would you say to the founders? Would you have made the same decision? Sadly, this is the price of being an early adopter.
- ivankirigin 17y agoI'm not too upset at my money lost. It easily justifies stealing the music myself. I really will lament not having a good web music player. Anyone know of an itunes-like client which you can point to your server or S3? I'm happy to host things myself.
- piramida 17y agoThere are a number of free web-based players with a nice interface, I use prostopleer.com. As more such virtual goods (video, audio, books, etc) companies will fail to offer reliable long-term service, customers will force them to switch to a model where you get something better than a temporary database record for your money. Meanwhile, I'm only paying for service subscriptions.
- araneae 17y agoI wonder about the timing of it; could it be, in fact, a result of Google featuring Lala songs in web search? I don't know if anyone else noticed this, but in the past few weeks when I would Google a song, a Lala box would be at the top of the page allowing you to stream the song. Obviously now there is no way to stream the song directly from the Google search page. Now that it's war between Google and Apple, I can see this bringing Lala to Apple's attention.
- mikebo 17y agoThis shouldn't be that surprising. Lala's deals with record labels weren't transferrable to an acquirer, so the real surprise is how this has ran for so long.
- calaniz 17y agoI hope Apple relaunches this within iTunes. I loved lala.com and am sad to see it go. I found myself purchasing streamed albums after a certain point.
- tzs 17y agoNow if they could just get rid of Po and Tinky Winky...