A few weeks ago I searched Google for a now popular band, Owl City, and noticed that the first result was accompanied by a song player from Lala.com. I searched for a few more artists on Google and many did not come up with a Lala player unless they were very mainstream. I wondered why Google was suddenly spotlighting Lala, a site I never heard of, as opposed to other music services. Apparently Lala has been gaining most of its recognition and popularity in the past twelve months. So why was Google now giving its power to Lala in particular? Google also shows three less prominent music links: iLike (owned by MySpace since August), Rhapsody (Real and MTV) and Pandora. Other music services such as Last.fm (owned by CBS) are now unfortunately locked out of this new ring of search riches.
Shortly after this Google surprise, Apple purchased Lala last week and there’s a lot of speculation as to why. Apple doesn’t seem to be releasing any specific info and Lala hasn’t posted anything solid about the deal. Many believe that Apple is taking their first serious step into streaming since music purchases are likely on the decline, especially in the last year. This October 2008 press release from Lala mentions iTunes. Apple likely began to take notice of the budding service around that time:
PALO ALTO, Calif., October 21, 2008 – Lala is unveiling the first and only free fully licensed service to instantly provide anywhere Web access to an existing music library such as iTunes. Replacing the outdated approach of uploading MP3 files from a PC, Lala introduces a licensed technology to instantly match songs from consumers’ personal music libraries with the Web-based catalog on lala.com.
Today when I search Google for bands that are lesser known, the results are shining now for each one of them, unlike a few weeks ago when the results were spotty. To try my hardest, even a search for one of the purest of singers, Jo Stafford, yields a Lala player. La-force is now in full effect. But the question still remains: why did this one, two, three punch even happen? Did Apple only notice Lala extensively as an asset when Google made the search deal? What about other established services? Pandora is probably the largest online music service and one of the most popular applications on the iPhone. But not only is Pandora likely unwilling to agree to any partnership or brain sharing, Apple probably doesn’t value their technology and may even consider it to be old; somehow still surviving by word of mouth. Instead, Apple is looking for the next big thing. This forces Apple to find other fruit, such as Lala, in less popular trees to add unique genes to their iInventions. All the while, Pandora and iTunes searches on Google are interestingly neck-to-neck:
I believe that Apple will be using the knowledge of the Lala team to improve iTunes and make it a more intuitive service, streaming or no streaming. However, the multi-company race in music sharing is continuously heading towards the cloud, not the pocket, and there’s no looking down.
