Apple Shutting Down lala.com
Shouldn't be surprised. As soon as Apple bought them it was only a matter of time until the iTunes competition went by the way side. The email I got from them:
"The Lala service will be shut down on May 31st.
In appreciation of your support over the last five years, you will receive a credit in the amount of your Lala web song purchases for use on Apple's iTunes Store. If you purchased and downloaded mp3 songs from Lala, those songs will continue to play as part of your local music library.
Remaining wallet balances and unredeemed gift cards will be converted to iTunes Store credit (or can be refunded upon request). Gift cards can be redeemed on Lala until May 31st.
Click here or visit Lala.com/support for more information, or to view Lala's Terms of Service.
Thank you.
Lala"
Craig
"The Lala service will be shut down on May 31st.
In appreciation of your support over the last five years, you will receive a credit in the amount of your Lala web song purchases for use on Apple's iTunes Store. If you purchased and downloaded mp3 songs from Lala, those songs will continue to play as part of your local music library.
Remaining wallet balances and unredeemed gift cards will be converted to iTunes Store credit (or can be refunded upon request). Gift cards can be redeemed on Lala until May 31st.
Click here or visit Lala.com/support for more information, or to view Lala's Terms of Service.
Thank you.
Lala"
Craig
Comments
If I wasn't addicted to my various iPods over the years, I'd find a lot of reasons not to do business with Apple. For a company that made it big holding itself out as an alternative to Microsoft, Apple seems to have adopted most of the business practices it once abhorred.
The loss of free, on-demand, full single listens definitely hurts, and there's no reason to think Apple will resuscitate that aspect of lala (particularly since lala's streaming licenses won't migrate to Apple, evidently).
What a shame.