Lala may take iTunes into the cloud
If the rumored talks between Lala and Apple are actually happening, and if the best things possible come of it, the biggest change in iTunes since its inception may be about to happen.
Lala is a Web site which allows members to legally create online shareable “playlists” of their own uploaded music which can be used 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, trade original CDs by USPS mail for $1 per trade plus 75¢ postage, leave blurbs on other members’ pages, and participate in the community forums. It has a little bit of everything.
Now that it is rumored that Apple is seeking to purchase Lala, it is up to us to consider what sort of musical mashup the combination of iTunes and Lala would make. One thing is for sure, of course, and that is that it would involve music storage in the cloud, which is quite a prospect given the scale of operation involving iTunes. It would also allow users of what are basically flash-memory devices, like the iPhone and iPods, to keep their music on tap in the clouds where memory is endless, even more so than on today’s large PC hard drives, according to a Wired article.
Indications from everywhere say that the world of computing is shifting to the cloud, and more and more the world of computing is in large part the world of mixed media. With Lala’s experience in tapping the resources of cloud data to infuse the musical life of members, Apple could move into that realm fairly quickly with a purchase of the smaller company. The CEO of Lala, Bill Nguyen, has some experience in selling companies in a big way, like he sold OneBox to Phone.com for $800 million in 1999. Even with sales prices in that range, Apple would stand to make a killing selling musical space in the cloud.
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