Best pieces I’ve seen on Lala:
I have one major point to make: don’t assume you know whether it sold for a high or low price. The consensus that it was a low price is from Kara Swisher on All Things Digital and is completely unconfirmed. Some credible gossip is that it was relatively high. This is an issue of the fog of war. Whether or not you think you can see through the fog, never forget that your vision is impaired. At this point only Apple and Lala know the price. Techcrunch knows nothing. All Things Digital, Tech Dirt, Read Write Web, the NY Times — all know nothing. Whoever you learned what you know from probably got it from one of those sources. You know nothing. At least know that one thing.
For myself, the one thing I have concluded from the iLike-iMeem-Lala threefer is that every single streaming music business may well be a pretty house full of termites. Lala looked great in many ways, including the execution of their product and the massive exposure they’re getting on Google music search. Outward appearance is not an indicator of inward stability.
I believe that the streaming music model will prove tricky to operate, but if it is to really work, it will work on an emusic basis, with indie labels
accepting reasonable royalties in return for exposure for their artists.
The time will yet come that an inventive streamer or netlabel will succeed in
making an unknown CC artist streaming label work commercially. But that will be a completely different thing than a conventional streaming operation–it will be a form of Ralph-records-style cult audience creation.