Lala (website)
|
Type of site
|
Online music distribution |
|---|---|
| Headquarters | Palo Alto, California, USA |
| Owner | Apple Inc. |
| Created by | Bill Nguyen |
| Website | http://www.lala.com |
| Commercial | Yes |
| Registration | No longer accepted |
Lala was an online music store created by Silicon Valley entrepreneur Bill Nguyen. The service allowed members to legally create online shareable "playlists" (formerly known as "radio stations") of their own uploaded music which could play full length songs for other registered Lala members, purchase MP3s, stream music on a one-time basis or as inexpensively purchased "web songs," buy new CDs from the Lala store, leave blurbs on other members' pages, and participate in the community forums. Lala contracted with major labels and offered a large catalog of albums to stream or purchase. Their home page claimed over 8 million licensed songs available.
Apple Inc. acquired Lala on December 4, 2009. On April 30, 2010, Lala announced it would be shutting down its service on May 31, 2010. They also announced they are "no longer accepting new users" and that users with credit would receive credit in Apple'siTunes Store instead.
Lala shut down as scheduled on May 31, 2010. However, it still served for a while as the music engine for Billboard.com, providing full-length previews of songs on the Top 100 chart. After that, Billboard.com used MySpace Music as its provider.
La La media, Inc. was based in Palo Alto, California and was venture funded by Bain Capital and Ignition Partners, as well as a recent $20 million investment by Warner Music Group Corp. It was founded by serial entrepreneur Bill Nguyen, along with Billy Alvarado, Anselm Baird-Smith, and John Cogan III.
The site launched in an invite-only beta phase on March 6, 2006. It officially launched in open-beta on June 8, 2006. By December 2006, there were around 300,000 members registered on Lala and over 500,000 CDs traded since the company's launch. The company had a staff of 23 people.
In 2007, La La media, Inc. introduced Lala 2.0, which moved the website's focus from trading used CDs to uploading MP3s and listening to free, legal, on-demand streaming of full length songs and albums. The listening feature was quietly discontinued a few weeks later without explanation to the site's user base.
The next version of the site, referred to as Lala 3.0, transitioned from closed beta testing to a general site rollout in open-beta mode in June 2008. The site was openly divided between trading members and non-trading members with different access to certain site features. Registered Lala members could stream songs or albums in their entirety once at no cost. Individual tracks could be purchased in MP3 format for 89 cents, or, for ten cents, members could purchase the right to stream a song from the website as many times as desired (referred to as a "web song"). All members could also upload their MP3 song libraries for personal web access from any computer.
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