Apple to Shut Down Lala.com, Continue Sucking the Fun out of Music Discovery

Why must Apple crap on everything I love. First – the mp3 player gets abolished by big bro iPod. Now, Lala.com – which I’ve participated in since Beta – is on a respirator for one more month before Apple officially pulls the plug.

lala.com original logo apple eats
Apple’s acquisition of Lala.com in late 2009, led to speculation that an online store — independent of the iTunes application platform — would take over the space. An iTunes.com — or iTunes in the cloud — if you will.

Lala’s humble beginning in 2006 was based on a business model involving the actual physical swapping of CDs through the mail. Or as they not-so-humbly declared at launch, “The Largest Record Store on Earth.” The site would be full of album covers and users would check “have” or “want” and then arrange to send and receive via Lala’s Netflix-like shipping envelopes, for $1 each.

As the tide turned decidedly away from CDs and toward digital music purchases, along with pressure and legal action from artists and labels, Lala launched 2.0 by 2008. The new Lala was a music “community” from which you could play, share, and discover music. Essentially taking the ultimate music store and putting it in the cloud with licenses for unlimited listens of songs and album at a fraction of what iTunes and Amazon charged – about 10 cents.

Lala.com’s valuation jumped to over $100 million by the end of 2009, aided by a $20 million investment by Warner Music Group. Warner dumped both Lala and iMeem in May 2009 citing losses of $33 million. Lala was acquired for an alleged $80-85 million by Apple in December 2009 (or as low as $17 million and even $3 million if you ask some).

Today Lala is integral to the music industry and serves up one of Billboard’s few weekly charts based on Web-plays and purchases.

On May 31th the service will be put down and customers who’ve enjoyed the fast rise and faster fall of the service are not too happy about it and now have until June 14th to apply for iTunes credits.

I wonder how many or the services that I listed on my September 2008 Socializing the Music Industry Guide even still exist. Here’s a list of alternatives posted at RWW today. I’m fortunate to be an early user of Spotify.

Personally, I’m still happy to buy CDs directly from the bands at their shows or from the labels. Otherwise I buy mp3’s at Amazon. Apple is evil.

Official note from LaLa.com posted below:

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Spring Cleaning

springtime on the patio

It’s already been an incredible spring with some good stories to tell, but to shake off the cobwebs I thought I’d give the little bloggy a minor makeover. New theme, in with some new plugins, out with some old. So help me out here – play around with the Facebook social plugin stuff — if you’re into that — unfortunately I won’t be customizing my content for you but I might look into sending your grandma a new pair of shoes if you’re nice. And thanks to Facebook’s concern for your privacy, her shoe size should only be a couple clicks away. But really, if you happen upon this old, neglected blog-o-mine, I do appreciate any and all honest comments and criticism. This has always been more of a testing ground for me than anything else — a place to play around before I bring things to the big stage (or any level of greater accountability).

But seriously, spring is here, I’ve got some time, and a whole lotta ambition. Let’s shake things up, start something new, and rock out in the sun. You ready? (P.S. if you’re on Spotify, I a made a little mix for this right here.)

Facebook Goes Live with Eventbrite Integration

Facebook Eventbrite Partnership Goes Live on Event Pages

I Just noticed this for the first time moments ago — the first fruits of the Facebook / Eventbrite partnership that was sealed last month. I believe this is somewhat of a first for Facebook — actually marrying an exclusive partner into enabling event payments. It sure seems to be part of an ongoing trend — Facebook began taking PayPal payments in mid-February. Why not just incorporate PayPal into Facebook events? It probably wouldn’t be as messy as the Eventbrite link-up is, at least at launch. For months Eventbrite has leveraged Facebook Connect and users’ propensity for cross-posting about events they had RSVP’d for — one of the more effective uses of Connect, to bolster paid registration by maintaining a presence on users’ Facebook News Feeds. If nothing else this proves Eventbrite to be a winner in the who-will-be-the-next eVite.com sweepstakes.

Upcoming Facebook changes will remove this box. Save your music!

Music No More?

But is this just a test? Is it just a partnership or a precursor to acquisition? Will we see gold coins? Remember, Facebook once co-opted iLike and renamed the iLike app THE “Music” app. iLike was later acquired by MySpace (last August) and now the iLike-powered music app is about to vanish from everyone’s Facebook wall.

Music no more?

It is also now impossible to feature photos and videos in an event post — another sign that Facebook is looking to focus on paid event implementation. Any photos I post as an admin show up on the wall but they will not appear by default as new comments take precedence. Let’s walk through the Eventbrite + Facebook process. It’s not at all intuitive from either the event host or user point of view and in fact, it isn’t truly implemented into Facebook — it’s little more than a link to Eventbrite.

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VIDEO: Chandeliers sway in JW Marriott lobby after 7.2 Earthquake South of Mexicali, Baja Mexico April 4, 2010


Chandeliers sway in JW Marriott lobby after 6.9 Earthquake in Baja Mexico April 4, 2010

Originally uploaded by andysternberg

There were strange crack/rolling sounds from alternating sides of the building during the quake, which felt like a gentle swirling than anything else. The quake took place hundreds of miles away. Per Wikipedia:

The Ritz-Carlton/JW Marriott hotel building, a part of the LA Live development in Los Angeles, California, is the first building in Los Angeles that uses an advanced steel plate shear wall system to resist the lateral loads of strong earthquakes and winds.

20 minutes later they came on the loudspeaker to say they were investigating any possibile structural damage to the building.

I just took some photos of the steel beam wall setups and have posted them below — according to the bartender here, this building is built to withstand a 12.0 magnitude earthquake. I feel much safer now.
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