Lala is shutting down May 31.

[GA Russell]

I received this letter today from Lala:

Dear GA Russell,

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

[Shawn]

I've been expecting that.

[BillF]

I received this letter today from Lala:

Dear GA Russell,

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

That will be a great loss. Hope my favorites over here, Spotify and Deezer, don't go the same way.

[Big Al]

Well, it was fun while it lasted.

[GA Russell]

I have found what appears to be a similar site called grooveshark.com. It is ad supported, but I think you can listen to streaming for free.

I have been able to start a playlist, but I haven't figured out how to get the playlist to play. I'll keep working on it.

[Niko]

I received this letter today from Lala:

Dear GA Russell,

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

That will be a great loss. Hope my favorites over here, Spotify and Deezer, don't go the same way.

yes! deezer was greatly restricted in germany now (no major labels anymore), spotify's expansion to further countries never really happened, lastfm's streaming service was shut down a few days ago... guess it's only a matter of time... was great while it lasted, still is, but i don't expect it to go on for long anymore

[Tom 1960]

It's a real shame since I've used lala as a resource for potential future purchases. All good things do come to an end.

Edited May 1, 2010 by Tom 1960

[Shawn]

Don't be the least bit surprised if iTunes starts adding a dirt-cheap "all you can listen" streaming option in the near future. It would only make sense to shut down Lala before launching some kind of major service change.

Hopefully iTunes will add "stream all" capability to sample albums like Lala did. Who knows....

[GA Russell]

I have found what appears to be a similar site called grooveshark.com. It is ad supported, but I think you can listen to streaming for free.

I have been able to start a playlist, but I haven't figured out how to get the playlist to play. I'll keep working on it.

I've spent the evening at grooveshark. My earlier problem was apparently because of a defective file.

Grooveshark has a much smaller playlist than lala when it comes to jazz, but I feel that the audio sounds much better.

[David Ayers]

Well, Spotify is still going strong and has continued to add tracks - major chunks of the Universal classical catalog just appeared. WHo knows how that will go?

I do think, though, that the move from ownership to access has a long-term logic behind it, so I'll be surprised if no way is found to make the model viable.

Edited May 1, 2010 by David Ayers

[BillF]

It's a real shame since I've used lala as a resource for potential future purchases. All good things do come to an end.

Don't get despondent, Tom!

this is most tragic.....I've been using Lala as a tool to help me avoid making bad purchases......well I guess it's back to relying on mostly unreliable reviews and guessing and hoping and wondering.....lala has been responsible for me not buying hardly any duds..(only 1 in the past year and that one was not available to listen to on lala). 30 second sound samples while good is not the same.

Exactly my experience!