Lala - The Dark Horse of Online Music Streaming

Everybody Knows - John Legend

This post is about music so why not listen to some while you read? And why not make it John Legend - Awesome. I am constantly exploring online music services. I dig music. I dig music that is free. I dig sites that deliver free music in a unique way. I have previously mentioned sites like Pandora, PureVolume, SadSteve, B-Sides, iTunes, Soundunwound, Soundflavor, and others, which are all good to listen to music and learn about new music. Recently I found the darkhorse of online music services...

Lala is an online music service that allows listeners to choose songs they like, create a queue (a playlist of sorts) and listen to music that they choose and love. In that regard, Lala is not a very unique service. In fact, if that is all that the site does, I wouldn't be posting about it. A better way to describe Lala is as an online music repository. What does this mean? Two things really:

1. Lala is a place where you can purchase and accumalate music to which you have a right to listen to as if it were your own. Purchase? Yeah, purchase. Songs cost $.10 and you get the right to listen to the purchased track as much as you want, whenever you want. You do not get to download it to your own computer unless you pay the usual, iTunes standard $.99. So what is so special about that? Basically, you buy music online AND you get to store the music online AND download it to your computer. A lot of people buy music from the iTunes store. I would argue that this method allows you to back up your entire music collection for FREE. Further, this method allows you to access your files online, anytime. I think thats pretty fantastic.
2. Lala is a place where you can store music that you ALREADY OWN and accumulate music that you purchase. Thats right! You can upload your entire music library to Lala for free - have access to it from anywhere in the world with internet access. That is a unique concept that makes Lala worth trying out.

How does it work: When you set up an online account, the site gives you 50 free music credits. These are credits that you can use to go out and "purchase" any song. I use the term purchase loosely in this context because there are two types of purchase of a song on Lala: a strictly online purchase and an online purchase that allows you to download and keep the file. So you can accumulate music in two ways, strictly online (less expensive) or online and on your computer (normal cost of music).

Music Mover: Lala has its own software that searches your computer for music and uploads it to Lala. Basically, the site matches your music with online music and then automatically gives you the right to those songs which you already own. Honestly, this is what makes Lala one of the most amazing onlines services on the web becuase of the possibilities. Think about it:

• Do you have a large music collection on your home computer but don't want it to take up all the space on your laptop? Or is your laptop a work laptop? Or do you just want to access your music from a public computer or from someone else's computer. Lala makes it so you can access your music library without storing it on your computer at all! Better yet - you can do this from anywhere with access to the internet.
  
• Own an iPhone or iPod touch but hate that you can't fit your whole collection on it? Get the Lala app and connect to your music on the interweb. This App is forthcoming but check out the amazingness of the concept.

Music Mover in action - you know, just doin' its thang

My music collection post Music Mover upload - after it did its thang.

More About Music Mover: Music Mover is a small program you download. To use it, you simply specify the source location of your music library and begin the upload process to Lala. Music Mover will go through a rather time consuming process of uploading all your music (unless it is unrecognizable) to Lala. Depending on the size of your music library, this process can take a long time or a short time. I have around 6000 songs and it is taking hours and hours and hours. Right now I have access to around half of my music and it took the program about 3 hours to accomplish. In my opinion, that is a small price to pay for having access to your music anywhere, anytime!

More About the Site: The site's interface is clean, straightforward, and very easy to use. Searching for music is very simple. Once your library is uploaded, your view of your music is similar to what iTunes used to look like when it wasn't so album art-based. The music player streams music with ease and maintains a position on the top of your screen while you browse their site.

That is the Lala homepage for my account

This is what the Queue looks like - You can also make playlists - even on iTunes then upload them.

Lala has a very simple "share" app allowing you to share any song on your own site, facebook, or whatever. Here is another great tune.

Gravity - John Mayer

Things I think will improve the site: the site will benefit from a better interface for music collections. Right now, its a little old looking and difficult to use when there are a lot of songs in the library. Also, I think a pop-out music player would be awesome. Right now, you can't navigate away from that page (which isn't so bad) and that makes it difficult to see what you are listening to or change a track while looking at a different site.

A BONUS: If you want to check out Lala without going through the uploading process, just leave a comment on this post and I will hook you up with access to my collection. Obviously, I will only give access to people I know and trust...

Sad Steve

That ugly dude to the left is Steve... Sad Steve. He represents today's featured music site: www.sadsteve.com. (Special thanks to Sam for this site!) Sad Steve is another online music site. It is not like Pandora or PureVolume at all. Its not a radio site and its not an artist bio site (although the site does do featurettes on some bands). So what is it? Well, its a site where you can look up specific artists and songs and listen to them. So why would you use Sad Steve instead of Pandora or PureVolume? The answer lies in HOW Sad Steve works. Sad Steve indexes (just think of a library index) music on the internet. The index is large although not exhaustive. So what this means is that you can use Sad Steve to hear a song or artist that you want to listen to. Specifically. For example, on Pandora you search an artist and it brings back a song, specific to what you wanted or not, and plays it. Sad Steve allows you to play only the song you want. Obviously, comparing Pandora to Sad Steve is like comparing really tasty grapes "and really bad eggs" (respectively).


Either way, Sad Steve has its benefits.

• You will notice that when you search for a song in Sad Steve and play it, a pop-up window appears. That window has a simple little media playing script that begins playing your song.
  
• You will notice a list of links below said script: Download, E-mail to Friends, Lyrics, Album Art, Share on Facebook. Hmmm, those sound useful. Let's discuss them, last to first.
  
• The Share on Facebook link, simply places a link of that song on your Facebook profile. I did this on my profile if you know me and want to see it in action.
  
• The Album Art link is not useful.
  
• The Lyrics Link shows the lyrics... kinda cool.
  
• The E-mail link does what the facebook link does except through your e-mail address... that's kinda cool too.
  
• The Download link downloads the song...

What? Downloads the song? Is that legal?

On that question, Sad Steve's "What?" page - basically its Q & A about page - states:
Q 3. Is this legal? Will I get in trouble for downloading?
A. Yes, the site is legal. Sad Steve works by indexing mp3 files from all around the Internet. So, for example, if the website for John's California Surf Club hosts a Beach Boys song, that file is indexed and made available to the you, the user.

No, you won't get in trouble for downloading. Sad Steve's traffic monitoring tools do not log users' IP addresses, physical addresses, e-mail adddress, or any of that garbage. In fact, there is no record anywhere in our system of what files are downloaded, how many times, or by who. So whether you download zero, ten, or a thousand songs, nobody knows.

HUH?


The verdict: apparently yes and no... It is legal for them to index music on the internet. The strange things is that the site says its legal, then goes on to tell you how there is no way to monitor who uses it (i.e. who downloads from it). So... It legal for them to index the music, "yada yada yada" you can download to. My opinion: its legal to listen to the music. About the other stuff i don't know.

Check out Sad Steve and see if you like. Download some music if you like.

Pandora - Online Radio

I am guessing that many of you readers out there have heard about Pandora. I hope that you have. Its not that new to me either - my friend told me about the site a long time ago. Either way, maybe you could use a refresher.

Pandora is the music Genome project - it's like, mapping the genes of like, music, and stuff. Less hippy, Pandora is a free online dynamic radio service that matches music you choose to listen to with other music that you like or are bound to like based on your tastes. How does it work? The service has a large database of music that has been classified according to artist, genre, sound, and other features that allows their servers to combine favorable music lists. It bases its information on information from thousands of users that provide a simple thumbs up or thumbs down on each song on a station.



The site is SUPER easy to use. It has a really clean look (not a ton of ads, simple design, good flow, etc). As I said, its free to listen and you don't need to setup an account. However, setting up an account is easy (requires simple information like e-mail, password, DOB, Zip) and once you set up an account you will be able to save "stations" that you made and continue to listen to them later. Basically, the site is brilliant!

This morning, in honor of today's post, I started a new station. I searched the band "Audioslave" and it pulled up a great song by the band. The next song was Pearl Jam, then Nirvana, Incubus, Audioslave (again), Red Hot Chili Peppers, Bush, Foo Fighters, and on and on. Holy cow! Good Listening!! WHY DIDN'T I THINK OF THIS SITE?! I would be bathing in coins, Ducktails style.

A good thing, by the way, is that you can advance to the next track on the station if you don't like a song. You should remember to rate the music that you hear (thumbs up or down) so that the server gets smarter and smarter and you get better and better music. THE BIG BONUS: you get to learn about music that maybe you didn't know you like but that you do! That's huge for all you stagnant music listeners out there! DYNAMIC RADIO is just what the doctor ordered. The only bad thing that I can think of is that it won't let you go back to previous songs. I kinda hate that. But oh well, small price to pay for brilliancy!

PureVolume

Are you are Rock/Punk/Alternative fan? Want to find new bands? PureVolume is a site devoted to the discovery of new music. Here is what their "about" page says:

PureVolume is a website for the discovery and promotion of new music and emerging artists. Each artist has a profile that typically contains basic info, updates, photos, shows and music for streaming. Artists have the option of making each of their songs available for free download. Listeners and fans can also create profiles to interact with artists and each other, as well as track and share music they like.

I have used the site to find all kinds of bands that I currently enjoy. As stated above, the artists will commonly make their music available for free download. So you get to preview and keep some of the music that you find. The site is really for rock/punk/alternative fans so keep that in mind if you check it out. Don't expect to find Beyonce on there. Here is a link to a band that I just found using PureVolume: Dizzy Balloon.

The site has a polished design, good tunes, free music, and lots of music to listen to, so check it out!