Lala (website)
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.[1] Their home page claimed over 8 million licensed songs available.[1]
Type of site
May 31, 2010
Yes
No longer accepted
March 6, 2006
Apple Inc. acquired Lala on December 4, 2009.[2] On April 30, 2010, Lala announced it would be shutting down its service on May 31, 2010.[3] They also announced they were "no longer accepting new users" and that users with credit would receive credit in Apple's[4] iTunes Store instead.
Lala shut down as scheduled on May 31, 2010.[3] 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.
History[edit]
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.[5] It was founded by serial entrepreneur Bill Nguyen, along with Billy Alvarado, Anselm Baird-Smith, and John Cogan III.[6]
Initially the business focused on CD trading, allowing users to send CDs to other members. Lala kept track of the trades, so that each user could expect to get as many CDs from others as they had sent out themselves. 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.[7]
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.[8] The listening feature was quietly discontinued a few weeks later without explanation to the site's user base.[9]
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.
In December 2009, Lala made the decision to close their trading service.[10]
Lala.com was purchased by Apple, Inc. on December 4, 2009.[2]
On April 30, 2010, Apple announced that it would be shutting down Lala.com entirely on May 31, 2010.[3]
Lala.com and WOXY.com[edit]
Nguyen and his website were highlighted in the news in October 2006, when Nguyen announced his investment in Internet-based Cincinnati, Ohio radio station WOXY.com.
The investment allowed WOXY.com to go back on the air after a brief suspension of broadcasting. Both sites cross-promote the other; Lala.com promotes the station, and WOXY advertises music that is for sale (or trade) produced by some of the independent artists that WOXY features.[12] In February 2009, LaLa sold Woxy.com to Future Sounds, Inc., an organization that aired programming on WOXY.com.