Switched On: Apple's song remains the same
Lala's business model of selling and hosting digital music was a complete abhorrence to an innovative music startup -- named Lala. When the site launched, it was a CD trading service that held up the integrity of the album and the virtues of physical content ownership in an online music market of single-track downloads and subscription-based music rentals. To its trade-by-mail CD service, Lala added CD sales, playlist creation, and for a short time even owned a former broadcast radio station. It had to ultimately scale back, though, on what would have been its most audacious move, giving away full streaming of the major labels' catalog -- all in the name of driving song purchases.
Lala's shifting strategies through the years may have led many to think that its recent acquisition by Apple would represent radical changes to Apple's music approach. Lala lives on a Web page, streams from the cloud, and gives users, including Google search users, one full free play of any song in its library. But Lala's business model was always, at its core, more like iTunes' than any number of streaming music companies -- from the custom radio of Pandora to the subscription downloads of Rhapsody. Those services, however, have long been better at Apple at fostering music exploration when compared with iTunes' 30-second samples.Continue reading Switched On: Apple's song remains the same
Switched On: Apple's song remains the same originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 08 Dec 2009 17:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Permalink | | Email this | Comments
More...
