

Apple Has Acquired Lala - novicecoder
http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/12/04/apple-acquires-lala/

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psranga
I'll be out $5 (and I was expecting to spend more this weekend) if they cease
the streaming service. Just today, Etherpad abandoned their product. If Lala
follows suit, I'll probably never pay money or commit seriously to a small
startup's "cloud service".

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bumblebird
I don't think they're the norm. Several startups are in it for the long haul
rather than selling out+shutting down.

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dagw
But how can you tell one from the other? I'm sure many an entrepreneur has
sworn up and down that they are in this for long haul and will never sell out,
right up until the point where someone shows up with a large bag of cash.

Giving money to a small startup is always a gamble, and if all you've bought
is access to a web app then you have to take into consideration that they can
take that away from you at any time.

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bumblebird
I'd say you can tell if the startup has been around for a year or 2. If so,
they're probably going to stay around for a while.

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llimllib
lala's been around for a long time. (About a year (?) in the current
incarnation, much longer in a CD-swapping incarnation. I used both)

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cmelbye
I really hope that Apple realizes how good Lala is and doesn't shut it down.
I'm listening to it right now, in fact, and it is incredibly nice to stream
music from the cloud to my netbook. This might even be a good thing, perhaps
now their iPhone app will be accepted more quickly and they'll have the funds
to further invest in a desktop client like Spotify's.

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manvsmachine
I too was listening to Lala when I heard about this, and I was _instantly_
concerned. The current model that they have going is really good imo, and I
feel like it's inevitable that Apple will cannibalize it and merge the
functionality into iTunes, so as to exclude its use by non-iTunes users. I'd
love for it to remain in a semi-independent kind of position, kind of like
where Hulu is (was?). Not to be a hater (I actually like Apple products, even
though I don't use them), but has Apple acquired _any_ technology recently
that they haven't locked down into their little ecosystem?

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pmorici
To be fair Apple doesn't normally acquire products they usually build their
own. The only other two acquisitions in recent memory were PA-semi and that
maps company neither of which had a directly consumer facing product that I
can recall.

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cubicle67
and also, somewhat ironically in this case, iTunes

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jsz0
It doesn't make sense for Apple to buy Lala just to offer their own streaming
service via iTunes. Apple could have done that in house. I think they wanted
the social networking pieces. Not only for discovery of new music but as a
legitimate social networking site for like minded individuals. A Twitter for
music sharing, discussion, official band pages, tour information, merchandise
advertising, etc. The difference is Apple has a business model. Free streaming
via the web, paid subscription service to sync the music offline to your
iPod/iPhone, and classic iTunes purchasing for music & video. Might as well
expand it to the iTunes App Store too. Peer recommendation of apps, more
options for promoting your apps via social networking, maybe one-click
purchases/installs via the web. Multi-player iPhone gaming with your iTunes
Friend List (ala Xbox Live) Tons of possibilities for Apple. All this fits
nicely into iTunes LP, Genius, maybe even MobileMe.

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pmorici
Is everything that doesn't run on the local machine called a "cloud"
application these days? The use of the word seems to have gotten out of hand
to the point where saying something runs "in the cloud" is just synonymous
with the term remote sever.

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manvsmachine
Being nitpicky for a second:

There is a different between something being "in the cloud" and "on a server",
the difference being that if your stuff is just on a remote server, you
_could_ go to wherever it is, point to it, and say "that's where my stuff is".
With cloud apps, your data / service is always available by the same means,
but its physical location / method of distribution may have changed an
indefinite number of times without you ever noticing. It's just like shared
hosting, where your server state is continuously preserved, even though you're
not actually hitting the same box.

That, said the term "cloud" is beaten to death, not because it's inaccurate,
but because grid / distributed computing is now the norm rather than the
exception when dealing with web apps.

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pmorici
Exactly which is why I find it dubious that the term is used so readily when
in most cases we have no knowledge of a services underlying implementation.
It's like the F-word of computing over used and generally unnecessary.

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trevorturk
Maybe Lala has a really good deal set up with Google for those new music
search results and Apple wanted in on that...?

[http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2009/10/making-search-more-
mu...](http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2009/10/making-search-more-musical.html)

[http://www.google.com/search?client=safari&rls=en&q=...](http://www.google.com/search?client=safari&rls=en&q=coldplay&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8)

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milestinsley
This is probably pie in the sky thinking, but I hope this prompts Apple to
launch a browser based version of iTunes, using the technology/expertise
acquired from Lala.

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htsh
I don't know if its pie-in-the-sky as much as its an inevitable reality?
Everything is moving to the web. And they are building a big server farm.

Now that things have shaken down a bit following the mp3.com legal debacle, it
seems clear that Apple can let people access their own iTunes library via a
browser without upsetting too many people.

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milestinsley
Yes. I didn't want to jump the gun, but this is certainly the ways things are
going.

I really hope you are right! :P

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Semiapies
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=977632> for more info.

