For the past few months i've been hearing about a music searvice site called Lala and how it's supposed to be a great service, but i could never get in. Well, i finally got in and starting using the service. And let me tell you – it is, in fact, great.
What is it? Lala is a CD sharing service that lets you receive (in the mail) other people CD's and makes it easy – by providing you with easy mailing envelopes – for you to
send your CD's to other people.
Their site is very slick and very easy to use. You
- List CD's you have and claim the ones you want (by click on them in the site)
- Get CD's in the mail from any other member who decides to send you their CD. It notifies them on their lala site that their CD is wanted. Each CD costs you $1 (plus 50 cents shipping) and the number you get depends on how many you ship.
- Mail your CD's to people who have selected they want it. Lala provides you with prepaid envelopes so the shipping is really easy.
The claiming of CD's you have and selecting what CD's you want is very simple. I just received my first CD and it came in a plastic case. I never have to return it and just have to send a CD of my own once i get a notice from someone that they want it. It's just a P2P netflix for CD's. Pretty great. If you have time, sign up and start swapping
An interesting thing about the service is Lala claims to be setting aside 20% of their revenue to compensate the artists who get traded on the service. This is a nice little secondary market for these artists but it will remain to be seen how much revenue there actually is. Lala has raised $9 million in startup cash and is cleary burning through it on site development, labels, and even in client software (an iTunes plug-in). I see them needing more money in about a year with around 100k regular users. Nevertheless, i still think it's a slick site.
