5 thoughts on Apple’s interest in Lala

Hearing about Apple’s interest in acquiring Lala, I have these thoughts as to why Lala is a great value to Apple.

1. The 10 cents per song music streaming price

I’ve previously posted a blog post on Lala titled ‘10 cents a song is pretty tempting‘ .  Maybe Steve Jobs read my blog post. How many times do customers not follow through with an iTune purchase because “they like the song, but maybe not enough to buy it … just yet”.  Paying 10 cents a song to essentially bookmark the song for internet streaming rights to play back, in my mind, is the unique thing Lala offers that is a very nice feature…. and one that may lead to a  further sale. Note; this #1 reason influences all the other reasons, in my mind.

2. User music interest data mining – adding the 10 cent streaming purchases to purchases gives two levels of indication of user interest. Plus the conversions of 10 cent to full mp3 purchase is yet another data point to measure.

3. Playlists – User created playlists can feed recommendation engines. What if this were channeled into crowd-sourced online radio station programming ?

4. Home Theater play ? –  I don’t hear that Apple TV has been a huge success. What if your music library (including streaming only purchases) were added to an Apple home theater system offering? That may be more attractive to consumers. Roku just added Pandora to their Roku box (which I purchased awhile back to stream Netflix movies … for free …  since I have a Netflix account).

5. Response to Google – Google’s music search addition announce October 28 2009 brings up Lala as one of several matches to searches for  music at the top of the search page. Frankly, I was expecting to hear something from Facebook as a response. Apple’s response is pretty impressive considering their dominance in the digital music already with iTunes. And with the launch of Vevo.com (powered by Youtube), maybe Apple’s Lala acquisition is a counter attack in the making.

Will Facebook respond to Google’s Oct 28 Music announcement?

I saw on Techcrunch that Google will launch a music service on October 28th that combines some services from Lala and iLike  (no details yet …).

Screenshots

Some suggested listening on Lala while you read on.

I’ve previously posted an article on Lala titled ‘10 cents a song is pretty tempting‘ . Now if Google turns that into billions of songs, this adds up to real money.  So while no details are available yet, if I were to guess, I like Lala’s player and 10 cents per song online price for purchasing rights to internet plays.  I like iLikes ticketing/concert information. All they need now is a great recommendation engine like Last.fm or Pandora (I slightly prefer Last.fm), but then Google likely has the talent in house to develop a great recommendation engine. The hard part of starting from scratch would be doing the licensing deals. Lala and iLike have that.

So will Facebook respond ? I would be very surprised if Facebook does not announce something (at least an intention) either prior to or within a week of Google’s October 28 roll out. There were rumors just a few weeks ago that Mark Zuckerberg likes Spotify . I was unable to check that music service out as it is not available in the US … probably licensing … the hard part.

If both Google and Facebook partner up with just a few of the multitude of music players out there, there will likely be some other music services that just end up fading away.  One thing is certain. Most people are pretty attached to their music. An awesome music service coupled with broad music licensing can make for some very loyal customers, perhaps even loyal enough to follow their preference with a compatible phone service.

10 cents a song is pretty tempting

Amidst the myriad of web based song player options out there right now, I’m very tempted to start using Lala regularly.  The “new thing” about this player is you have an option to purchase “web plays” of a song for 10 cents each. Of course, you may also purchase MP3s to download at a reasonable price, which is pretty standard for most players.

How many of you bought an an entire CD 5 years ago and found you were hitting the “skip” button on half the songs to get to your favorites ? Buying individual songs/MP3s saves you from that problem. Fast forward 5 years. How many of you have purchased lots of individual songs/MP3s and find you are skipping those now as well or moving them to a 3rd tier playlist rotation? Buying a “web play” of a song for 10 cents may be just the thing for you.

10 cents a song is like a “bookmark price”. For the price of a cappuccino, you could spend several hours checking out artists, playlists, recommendations, etc. and purchase 25-30 songs (web play only).  They are then yours to stream as often as you like.  Try them out for awhile. If they really ‘stick’ and stand up to your criteria and taste for a “full purchase” after a few plays through, great, buy them. If they don’t ‘stick’, maybe they are still good enough (like most of your collection) for a few plays once in awhile even if  they just aren’t “absolutely must have on my iPod” selections. Then don’t buy these particular songs. Instead, listen to the web streamed versions to your hearts content.

According to a recent techcrunch post, there will be a Lala iPhone player app coming soon. Stay tuned. This may be a game changer in the music player space.