Online music may be a treacherous space right now, but there are still a handful of music startups that may be coming close to getting it right. One of our favorites is Lala, a streaming music site that allows users to put their digital music library in the cloud, which can then be accessed from any computer. And soon, they’ll be able to access every song they own from their iPhones too, without having to worry about storage capacity or syncing.
Unlike music sites like http://music.myspace.com”>MySpace Music, which largely revolve around playlists and streaming individual albums, Lala is meant to serve as a web-based music library. The site has forged unique deals with every major record label (and many indies too) that allows users to populate their online library with the music they already have on their computer (legally acquired or otherwise). Users simply install the Lala Helper app, scan their computer for music files, and sign into Lala to find their entire music library in the cloud.
From there, users can browse through Lala recommendations and see what their friends are playing. The site has a unique buying model that allows users to purchase ‘web-only’ versions of songs for a mere 10 cents a pop – a price point that is very addictive, but also gives Lala a legitimate monetization scheme beyond advertising. Users can listen to these web-only songs as many times as they want, but only through the browser – if you want to load it on your iPod, you need to pay an extra 80 cents to download it. So while Lala has been fairly impressive until this point, it has still kept users chained to their desks.
That may change soon, when Lala releases its iPhone application that will allow users to stream any song from their music library, whenever they want (provided they have an internet connection).
While some of Apple’s traditional iPods have massive storage capacities, many people have abandoned them favor of iPhones, which offer more functionality but much less space for the money (most people have either 8GB or 16GB models). And given that these devices are also used to store applications and video files, many of us find us having to pick and choose which songs we want to carry around with us.
With Lala, you don’t have to worry about that. The app streams the songs from Lala’s servers, in much the same way Pandora does. But unlike Pandora and similar radio apps, you can chose any song from your music library whenever you want.
Unfortunately, it still may be a while before everyone can get their hands on the app. Lala says that there isn’t any concrete release date for the iPhone application, explaining that it still needs work on a number of fronts. For one, the app still has obvious bugs (some text fields don’t update correctly, and sometimes a button won’t work). But perhaps more important, it sounds like the company may still have some legal hurdles to wrangle, and it also needs to fine tune its monetization strategy. Hopefully it won’t be too long – this app would be a boon for users with large music libraries, and would also offer a huge boost to the Lala service as a whole.
zoom
I await Michael Robertson’s skeptical thoughts on this…(http://michaelrobertson.com/archive.php?minute_id=276)
I loved anywhere.fm before Lala acquired it and look forward to experimenting with this, but simplifymedia is perhaps the cleanest safest option yet. (if you can leave a computer on all day)
correction…apparently it was imeem who bought anywhere.fm
How does the economics of this work out.
Lets assume they have no storage cost, which is not true. When I uploaded my stuff on 20GB of 50GB was stuff that they didn’t need to load up.
Lets assume no upload cost.
Let assume that I play 2hrs a day and 300 days a year. Thats probably 50 songs a day or 200MB a day or about 3c/day x 300 days = $9/yr.
They would make this up by selling me songs? May be. But if there are storage costs then things will really start looking bad.
that’s the beauty of how it works. It scans for duplicates. That portion after it was done uploading “the fast way ” or whatever it was going through and comparing each track to existing tracks so that if you have a song that has the wrong name it doesn’t re-upload it with a different name, it just uses it’s existing file and puts a different name on it in your library. In reality each user only has a GB or so of music that is unique to them. and lots and lots of websites can afford to give a user a GB of storage just from ad revenues. it’s really a clever set up. I think if they include ads in the iphone app (not saying they should) then they’ll be able to be profitable easily.
LOVE lala…!
10 cents a song if it’s stored on the web? I’ve got a connection with me 95% of the time between my desk and my iphone, so that would work great. Plus, I don’t have to worry about transferring music to my phone, I can just stream whatever I want to listen to.
Here’s a concern though – will I be able to stream this in the background on my iPhone like their music player allows now or will I not be able to use my phone for anything else while this is playing?
Pandora – FREE
Lala – $$
nuff said.
simplifymeda = free
Simplify Media is great and all, but you have to have the computer on 24/7, which is why I like the idea of Lala which looks at all the songs on the computer and then makes a cloud of what you have and don’t need the computer turned on.
Just wait until Simplify Media supports ReadyNAS.
Ideally you could serve up all your media to all of your devices without leaving your computer on.
maybe so… I know lots of people who love Pandora cause it streams the music you want without any hassel. and it’s free.
i just stream radio myself.
Not nuff said. You needed to mention this too:
pandora = bye bye
Lala = funded
@skeptic, sorry, but lala is like lala. sorry you work for a company which you know is going to end up in the deadpool; been there dones it.
Lala=not free, but affordable and legit
Everything that’s free=probably going away someday
Have not tried Lala but love Bluetunes (http://www.mich...-from-the-cloud). They have a technology that lets you upload very quickly and the charge to upload your songs is minimal. Seeqpod is also excellent but a different model.
No Android app == poo.
Haha, loser. Get an iPhone.
The imeem app for Android already does this — for free. Welcome to 2008, iPhone users.
its 2009 smarypants
its 2009 smartypants
Lala’s streaming service is free for songs you own. It is not perfect but it is free and works pretty well. http://www.lala.com/howitworks
Whats the difference of “storing in the cloud” or storing files on lala servers that can be accessed the same way?
The “storing in the cloud” is more like creating a personalized playlist of all the songs you legally own on your computer by checking them against a database of all songs sold by music labels to avoid having to copy files from your computer to lala’s servers. So when you stream those songs in your lala playlist you are actually listening to their own copy of the song stored on their server.
I think.
Also, “Cloud” is the new “dot-com”. Just put the word “cloud” in your software, and it’s sold, at least to VCs. Something like Wired: “Cloud”, Tired: “Social network” and so on.
Sounds like what Orb server already does (from your pc rather than cloud) only the orb iPhone app has been available for months.
Or Simplify, which is what I use.
or ootunes, though lala’s got a ton of promise, if they ever get it past apple
Point Less…
I can upload my track from CDs that I purchase from music stores to my own server and after that I just need to create a iPhone App that steams my music.. Its a Geeko thing
For normal users:
Upload your Music Data to YouTube in Audio formats, Mark your content as private or share it if you need, after that download YouTube iPhone App from Apple App store and use it in day to day life. It will work like a charm
Why need to purchase another tracks that u already have..Don’t spend money like this..Be intelligent enough to qualifying products & I think now a days consumers are too smart..
Yeah, that sounds practical.
Haha, yeah. Not practical at all.
LOL. you serious?
Missing the point, With Lala, you DON’T need to buy songs you already own. They are matched or uploaded to the service for free. Also, are you serious?
Problem is if the tracks are watermarked and banned by YouTube. Video already does it, and I know a few labels have tried to watermark their audio tracks.
This service upset me several months ago when I uploaded music they offered an app to download to iPod. They removed this and I the music from my Itunes. Needless to say I put in all this hard work for nothing til now but what about my lost music if I have a regular iPod. They should have done this awhile ago.
This sounds great. Just today I was wishing for something like this. I’m trying it right now and it’s great so far. Hope the iPhone app is just as good.
I use “Simplify” to stream ALL of my music to my iPhone. It works perfectly and I am even able to share my music with my friends and listen to it from iTunes. How is LaLa much different?
Totally right…
Lala is different in that they have to make money somehow to cover costs to pay labels. Costs ==> rules and restrictions.
Simplify is simple, safe, and free.
But I don’t understand Why they need to pay for label cost? If I purchase a CD of an album then I can do anything with it, I can gift it to some one,I can share it to my friend, I can use it as a show peace or I can break it and try to cool down my anger…
Its my CD after all I paid for it. So why you need to pay fees to Labels..
LALA means just give and give…… Seems good.
Hey TC readers. I had to reopen my tech screamer blog to pull out paid articles on it so I could cite them in paypal receipts I paid to the writers for the IRS.
valleywag.gawker.com/tag/tyler-cavell/
So I put the blog back online for about a week. On the 29th it has to come down, and I am never putting it back up.
http://tinyurl....om/tylerexposed
It will be up until tomorrow, so grab it now if you wanted it.
Tomorrow the last 2 sites on the server go on a roadrunner connection until the new server arrays are up. Get it while it’s still there, you have about 24 hours.
I’ve been waiting for this for awhile, Lala has become my music destination of choice as now I have all my music in the cloud accessible anywhere I go. It took me about 3 days to get all my music uploaded but it was so worth it. Now I don’t even stream from my computer, lala is where I go. This is one music service I hope makes it.
Anyone remember mp3.com?
I was thinking the same thing. I used to love that site.
No kidding. Mp3.com did the same thing and lost a very well-known court case because of it: http://www.law....ease10/UGM.html
I don’t see why this is any different.
BTW: the long and short of the mp3.com case is that it was not legal for the company to copy cds into their servers.
this is a seriously cool app. no more issues with storage limitations on the iphone.
Yes, but is it going to be allowed by Apple? Did Lala get any sort of guarantee that Apple will allow this apple to be distributed? Afterall, it does go after iTune’s business model.
The other question would be how AT&T would handle it? This would be yet another streaming app that takes up bandwidth.
Eventually, I see AT&T starting to limit the types of Apps that are allowed to stream data. I can easily see AT&T offering the “music streaming” plan for an additional $10.00/month.
Who cares if Apple approves it? Anyone who realizes the true power of the iPhone should have jailbroken it a long time ago. Anyone who hasn’t is a moron.
I agree, but for it to become mainstream, it will have to be available via the AppStore. Jailbraking your iPhone is still a techie solution only.
If apple doesn’t allow it, android & blackberry will and apple will be on the outside looking in
Is lala app available for jailbroken iphones ? That would be reason enough for me to try it.
Unfortunately, again not available for anyone outside the US. The EU should really get their act together now.
ONLINETV VIDEONEWS
Not fair.
Can someone explain (or give me a pointer) as to why services like lala or mp3locker are going to be able to compete against pandora ? With pandora available on the iphone … is the only advantage of lala/mp3locker the ability to be able to download to device ?
Pandora does recommendations and stations based on an artist or song. If you’re into shuffling, then Pandora is fine for you. But Lala offers access to your music library. Right now, I’m away from my home computer, but listening to a full album that I just purchased a few days ago. You can’t do that on Pandora.
On lala, you can listen to any song you want at anytime. Pandora is more like a radio.
Lala = Any song in your library on demand.
Pandora = the songs they want you to hear plus a couple songs by the artist you told it to play.
We <3 heart Pandora too (go Tim!), but get annoyed by its forcing you to listen to the very next song in the suggestion box and not able to jump around. Seriously that was a bad decision. Yahoo Music actually did this well years ago too (before they killed it), now lala makes it really easy to find cool new music. I have over 100 *great* songs I’ve found in the past few months that I never would have found otherwise. I was actually getting sick of music for a while; now am back into it.
NOT AVAILABLE in CANADA. US ONLY.
I’ve been using http://www.maestro.fm for a while now to access my library and they work similar to lala. Check them out if you haven’t yet.
As far as I know http://www.maestro.fm is available worldwide.
I’ve rolled my own for the iPhone. I have SimplifyMedia (which is NOT free for the iPhone), but a couple of its primary limitations are the inability to stream in the background, and doesn’t allow you to crawl your music folders. You have to go by artist, album, etc.
The one I have (currently a development in progress, but works nonetheless) requires you to run .aspx webpages on your home machine, but gives you complete access to your music. I have single & multiple song selection working, and playback is via Safari, which means, I can minimize it and go use other apps while Quicktime continues playing music in the background.
Apple won’t let them stream over 3G/2G unless it’s a low bitrate version of the song. How is Lala going to handle that?
This is great. I currently have my library of 20K+ files uploaded to Lala and find myself (daily) going to Lala to listen to my music rather than itunes – simply because itunes sucks up resources to run on my machine (in fact, I was listening via Lala as I pulled up TC and found this post). I much prefer a browser to a desktop app. In fact, it’s rare than I find myself outside of a browser nowadays. Good stuff.
Lala, I’m willing to pay a monthly fee to support my library (and I want the iphone app! For me, this is the killer app). Flat rate is best.
lala has always been long on the promises and short on the delivery. They also have a habit of alienating their customers. This is destined to fail.
I refuse to believe you without any real examples to back up your statement. I have used Lala ever since they started off strictly as a Used CD swapping service – I have traded more than 150 CDs with them, going back to when they sent out pre-stamped envelopes (rather than the Business Reply envelopes they use now). I don’t blame them for moving to the streaming model they have now – to keep up with the ever-changing internet music service needs.
Hey Kelly. How’s that Z foundation working out for ya?
Joe’s statements are untrue and I doubt he even uses it. I started using the service in December08 and have been only impressed by their quality of execution and their business model. It has solved a lot of music issues for me including quickly adding any song I hear on radio, trying out new albums (they allow 1 listen for free) and organizing all my music online so that I can access it from home/office.
sweet i have a iphone i cant wait til it comes out
A hobby of mine that nobody knows about is I like to be the first customer to take a shit at a new business. I find all the new businesses opening up such as grocery stores, Home Depots, restaurants, etc and I will walk in there first minute they are open for business and go right to the men’s room and take a huge shit. I have been doing this for 6 years now and have been the first customer to shit in over 110 stores throughout the area. I always buy something after so I can really be a customer. The night before I usually eat some bean burritos from Taco Bell and follow it up with a 20oz coffee on my way to the store early the next morning so I get the bubble gut which allows me a better chance of destroying the bathroom. I have been the 1st person to shit in many new businesses throughout Northern VA. I currently have 3 businesses that I’m waiting to open up for the public. I will make sure I’m the 1st to shit in the bathroom as a paying customer. I usually flush but sometimes if it’s a massive one that requires a lot of toilet paper I will just leave it sitting, sort of like my calling card.
Why confess here on TechCrunch?
shouldn’t Apple be doing this with iTunes? For as much as Apple gets, I’m not sure they get the web.
No doubt about that. There seems like lots of room for Apple to expand on their web-based offerings.
Mobile Me seems like the inklings of a service that could provide this kind of thing.
Awesome. Just the other day I commented on TC about Lala and here we are with some welcome news (I don’t even have an iphone, just want to see this company get some press). Now they just need to deliver on this app, and most importantly develop one for android (and eventually WebOS). Simplify is a great solution too, but it doesn’t give you as much freedom to explore and find new music as Lala. It’s the best of both worlds, play your own music for free and find new music as well.
Love it! now get this We have 5 Shopping Pink promo codes to giveaway http://whichweb...e_giveaway.html
1. US Only
2. Anything with free alternatives with 90% of the functionality won’t do well.
testing
testing techcrunch facebook connect
This thread is stale, and I realize I will be moderated away because this post questions the credibility of TechCrunch tech reporting, but do we know for certain if this application is hosted in a cloud? I mean, there is nothing there that screams cloud to me. It looks like it is just hosted on a typical LAMP stack to me… With some AJAX thrown in for good measure, and more evidence of the resurgance of client-server computing.
I’m still waiting for a mobile version of Spotify. Someday. Someday.
ZumoDrive isnt mentioned in this article!
You can do this with imeem on Android for 6 months now. http://www.imeem.com/mobile Owning an iphone I would be stoked for similar functionality but I suspect Apple will push back on approving something so similar to MobileMe / itunes integration coming this summer.
If you’ve read the comments this far you need to know that none of what is discussed above beats wixi . If you haven’t checked wixi.com then you are REALLY missing something. (Note: i am not affiliated in any way with Wixi unlike some people above who blatantly work for the companies they tout)
Hey Jason, why don’t you go back and ask Bill about the Z foundation? Where did all that money go?
Hey Zach (and others)
I really like the Lala technology. They have talented engineers making solid products. However they have to pay the labels fraction of a penny every time you listen to your OWN music. This will doom them financially. You just can’t have a viable business doing this because most people are going to object to having to pay everytime they push the play button and that’s what Lala has to charge.
Lala gets more love from techcrunch because they a Valley based but my company MP3tunes has some huge advantages:
- Available to worldwide audience (not just US)
- We support streaming AND syncing. Want to grab your music for an airplane trip? Can do with MP3tunes. Can’t do this with Lala. It is a one way street. Once your music goes in – it will never come out.
- MP3tunes supports a growing list of devices from Tivo, net radios, game consoles and more in the works. See: http://www.mp3t...com/screenshots
- MP3tunes can send songs to your mobile. See: http://mp3tunes...com/load2mobile
- We have an open API that anyone can build support for any device: http://www.MP3tunes.com/api
Lala does have some advantages over MP3tunes. They will rent songs to your for 10 cents each which MP3tunes doesn’t do (I think renting is bad for real estate and music.)
Lala does uploadless uploads where they match your tracks and activate them in your locker avoiding the time involved to transmit the content to their server. MP3tunes does not have the capability and it’s definitely handy so it’s a plus for them.
Ultimately the big difference is I believe the music in your personal locker is YOURS. Anything you want to do with it for your personal consumption (download, send track to your phone, sync to another computer) we allow.
– MR
CEO, MP3tunes
http://www.mich...elrobertson.com
p.s. I really detest vaporware announcements like this where the product isn’t available for public consumption. Press love should go to those delivering working products. Of course MP3tunes has an iphone version of our locker support in our labs but we won’t talk about it until its available for all.
I like mp3tunes for long time, although I can’t use it too much cuz I’m mostly connected with my poor 3G here in Brazil, on which I can get 100kb/s downloads top, but usually less than 40… it’s just not stable enough for quality streaming. It’s still better than the options I’ve tried.
I just wanted to say it’s very nice to see its CEO posting such a lucid comment. mp3tunes is quite amazing. But I’d like better to use cloud technology so I could “upload” all my songs, 99% of which are not unique anyway.
Plus I could just now test a 3rd part site using its API to work with iphone, which worked fine. All info is on the forums.
Great stuff, mister MR!
I’ve been waiting for this bad boy for a while now. Can’t wait til it’s released!
Someone already mentioned this, but I reiterate. All of these features are already offered by Orb and their iPhone app.
I don’t usually comment, but this thread is annoying!
Everyone should seriously stop talking about something they know nothing about. Lala is different than everything out right now. If you had to compare it to something, it would be a combination of simplify + the entire iTunes store (except every song is .10 rather than .99). The only stipulation is that you have to have a connection to the internet to use it.
I’ve tried just about everything out there. Currently I switch back and forth between Lala and Pandora. I like Pandora, but it doesn’t allow you to listen to the songs you choose. I primarily use Pandora to listen to music that I would never purchase such as Ambient or Classical music (for studying). I go to Lala if there is an album I’m interested in listening to all the way through. I can listen to the entire album for free the first time. If I want to listen to the album again I pay on average .80 for the entire album unlimited plays. If I only want to purchase a few of the songs on the album I pay .10 per song.
There is simply no other service offering this right now. Some are saying that their model is broken and they won’t survive at those fees. They have an algorithm that proves their profitability, otherwise they wouldn’t have the VC support they do. No company garners 35M without a solid business model.
Everyone is concerned about not being able to play their songs when they aren’t on the internet, but nowadays that’s not likely to be very long. Most of us have an internet connection at home, work, and school.
Lala also does everything that Simplfy does for free. If you only want to use Lala to listen to your own music collection, you can do that for free. However, until the Lala iphone app is available, you will want to stick with Simplify. But Simplify is only better than Lala if you can get all of your friends to connect to it as well and share music. Then you can multiply its value.
If Lala ever adds recommended songs like Pandora, I wouldn’t ever leave their site. The interface is better. The ability to select a song and actually hear that song is something Pandora can’t do.
I would just recommend that you try it out. It’s free. You won’t pay a dime until you’ve used up your first 50 credits. And you won’t use those up until you listen to songs that aren’t in your personal library.
Out of MYvosi LLC, comes the face of Web 3.0, Maurice Valentino. Valentino never thought that out of his humble past that he would soon be the creator and innovator of the newest web technology that positions him to become the next Internet billionaire.
The Firm United LLC, which is a holding company for several companies including MYvosi LLC which houses Valentino’s genius creation, Myvosi Web 3.0, the wave of the future.
Myvosi Web 3.0 is a media/data exchange tool, a search engine that gains knowledge of the user the more it is used. It can be used for networking, it offers the most up to date encryption for product being sold/personal information and has a virtual mall with a presence of 250,000 national and international vendors in contract.In addition to your own personal virtual assistant that controls your every experience desire.
“It will challenge us and move us into the future now,” says Valentino. The site offers human deductive reasoning and inference. “Imagine a machine with personality that’s proactive,sounds like efficiency to me.” states The Face Of Web 3.0(Maurice Valentino).
Valentino also went on to explain in more detail what to expect from MYvosi LLC and Web 3.0.”MYvosi Web 3.0 is the successful marriage of artificial intelligence and the web. In addition we want to be efficient not only from an economical and an environmental perspective but also from an individual and technological perspective. Web 1.0 was for all to read, Web 2.0 was for all write and Web 3.0 is and will be for all to innovate.” personalize your future, live out your potential. Myvosi web 3.0 allows you to search by sentences not eliminating the keyword based search but expanding on it. You can type in sentences and in turn it would return relevant results and suggest other content related to your search terms. You can ask your browser questions such as “where can i go for lunch” and it will provide you, based on your likes & dislikes something suitable (human deductive Reasoning).”Many fear that this detailed information about them will be exposed, but it is the exact opposite,” says Valentino. Your likes and dislike /personal information are not publicized they are on an encrypted network using the same encryption’s as the one used by the major banks in the world(ex. the TLS and the high 128 bit encryption). This graduates the common concept of the current web, typing in the same information and getting the same information. What’s now offered is a unique individual experience on the web tailored to fit you personality. Myvosi Web 3.0 consist partially of “mashup” applications. An example would be looking up restaurants and have it tie in to another application(GPS) giving you place and directions. Myvosi Web 3.0 has the most intelligent software agent at the click of a button. You can share data files securely and efficiently without the threat of viral and other harmful applications (worms,Trojan horses,malware,etc) infecting your computer.A quote from Thomas Chille” For manifesting a web 3.0, we need a web 3.0. We need a real evolutionary shift in the perception of the web by the end users. Much like the paradigm shift in involving the user generated content for web 2.0.” Its purpose is to educate, create, and innovate the end User’s experience of the Web’s resources. It is the web’s Advanced Version Of the 3 dimensional giant”Second Life,”but Extremely user efficient. The applauding moment was simply this stated by The Face Of Web 3.0 “Most importantly Web 3.0 Is all of you. It isn’t the dominating player with the most Bank. It is about you (the user). We as individuals craft web 3.0. we all have a major role in its implementation” says Valentino. This is just an overview what Myvosi Web 3.0 offers. The detailed version would require a 1,000 paged text book and far superceeds what was said today. Myvosi Web 3.0 launch date is in the summer (July) of 2010.
Special Acknowledgments:
*Barack Obama in his spirited aura of change
*Tim Berners-Lee and Robert Cailliau who created the World Wide Web at CERN
*James Hendler An artificial Intelligence Researcher
*Nigel Richard Shadbolt founder of the Web Science Research Initiative
*Ora Lassila a Finnish computer scientist
*Computer Science University of Southampton
*Artificial intelligence department @ University of Edinburgh
*Eric Schmidt CEO Of Google
*Doug Lenat Computer Scientist Ceo of Cycorp
*Kevin Kelly Great Mind
If I left anyone out you are not forgotten, but for the sake of time, many more I give thanks to. Thank you all for your research , your time invested in making us better and more efficient economically and environmentally, America and the World thanks you.
A few pioneers of Green Energy who deserve recognition
*Scott mcnealy co founder of sun micro systems say that technology of the Internet is the most planetary efficient way of conducting business
*John Doer partner, Kleiner Perkins Caufield Byers
says that Germany is the largest buyer of solar cells around the world
“These are point that should be noticed and implemented in our economic and environmental strategy and conducive to like such recovery” Says Valentino
*MIT chemist Daniel Nocera
*Thomas Hinderling innovator who wants to build solar island to make us more efficient.
*Texas oilmen like T. Boone Pickens started pushing alternative energy
*Steven Chu head the Department of Energy
just to name a few.
“These are a few of the people who have inspired me to offer the Next generation ready platform. I look at their stories and their desire to innovate and to make better. These are things and mindsets I was conceived in. These Great minds gave me the foundation to start myvosi and change the future. So I personally feel they deserve a great deal of recognition” Says The Face Of Web 3.0 Maurice Valentino
please come so
just discovered lala and i’m sticking with it.
What happened to this app? Iced by Lala or Apple?
+1 This app would kick ass. People should make more noise about this I want it.
I agree. I uploaded all my music to Lala (still do, daily) not because I want to access from another computer; I want to access from my iPhone. They said they were releasing one; I even saw the leaked demo. Where the hell did it go? Did Apple kill it?
If so… what a shame – especially since it looks like they’re about to approve the one from Rhapsody.