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LaLa is on the Right Path

LaLa (www.lala.com) is an online music service that allows users to stream music for free and buy both the digital and/or physical album of what they heard. LaLa is one of the first services to make a big bet on the fact that if people actually hear the music, it will entice them to buy it. LaLa’s model is far superior to the old, antiquated model that forced consumers to buy the CD first before they listened to it, only to be disappointed when 13 of the 15 songs suck on a $15 album purchase. The Internet is based on a free-flow of information and this service is the representation of that.

In terms of the service, it offers what most digital music services don’t (other than free streaming and purchase capability) and that’s a web-based song management and playback interface. There are no bulky downloads or installs as most of the service functionality is through the web-browser (syncing to MP3 players requires a download). The features offered include song storage (access your library from any web-browser), general music browsing, playlist creation, recommendations, MP3 player syncing, community features, and the ability to purchase both the CD and the digital album separately or as a bundle. The average bundle cost $9.99 for both the CD and the digital album which is a great value.

The song storage feature is simple to use and allows you to upload your entire music library and access from anywhere on the web through a web-browser. Unlike iTunes and a lot of the other digital music services, you don’t need to have anything installed on the computer you are using to access your music. However because it’s all web-based, you actually have to upload each song file from your hard drive to the LaLa servers. So, if you have a large library of songs, it could take forever to upload your entire library.

In terms of a dominant feature, outside of free streaming, it seems to be user playlists. You can easily create playlists by clicking on songs on your screen and then clicking the “Add to Playlist” button. For each song you select to listen to, LaLa provides a list of playlists that include that song. Playlists can be created with songs you have uploaded from your library or with songs that you can freely stream on the website.

The community features are not the focus of the site but are positioned in an effective way throughout the service. These community features definitely help discover new music if you don’t really have a particular song or artist in mind.

The sync with your portable media player feature is the one I had the biggest issue with. It required a 1MB download and after I installed it, started my web-browser, and went back to LaLa, it asked me for permission to open the LaLa media player. I said no and it crashed my browser again and again and again. I finally agreed and things loaded fine. I could not surf the LaLa site without it running after I installed it. This is either a bug or is intentionally required. I think it’s a bug but we will confirm.

The major drawbacks of the service are song availability (did not find all of the music I searched for), no bundle options for a lot of music, no rewind/fast forward controls when listening to music, and only 30-second samples of a lot of the music (not the full song for free streaming).

All in all, LaLa is a solid music service for anyone looking to sample music before they buy it. Great design and navigation, simple, web-based song management tools, free music streaming, and a great bundle pricing package. Once their library of songs reaches the levels of iTunes and the larger music services, LaLa will be a force to be reckoned with.

Click here to read our full review of LaLa @ SiteRapture.com or click here for some of our video tutorials.

I Love iMeem

iMeem is one of the early free streaming services that allows users to freely stream music and share their musical tastes with other fans and friends. Users can upload music, videos, and photos. I have to admit, when I first started using iMeem, I was frustrated with the busy pages and lack of consistent navigation options. I literally thought the service was horrible. However, as I got into the service and got used to the varied layouts and sifted through the content that was available, I became somewhat addicted. iMeem is like MySpace meets iLike. Hardcore community with hardcore music discovery. There is so much content on so many user profiles that you eventually find something you like. iMeem has content deals with all four major record labels and with smaller indie labels so the popular content is available along with the indie/underground stuff. If you want to buy the music or video, links are provided to purchase at iTunes and Amazon.

iMeem is simple. Users upload all of the music, videos, and photos from their computers to iMeem and that is what drives all listening and viewing activity on the website. iMeem only monitors which content is licensed versus not licensed. If the content is licensed by iMeem and uploaded by a user, then anyone who streams that song from the users profile will hear the full song. If the song is not licensed, only a 30-second sample is heard by users who stream that file (only the original file uploader can hear the full-length song). iMeem makes their money by displaying advertisements around the free music and videos and by selling premium profile page themes to users.

From a features and functionality perspective, iMeem almost offers too many things to do. You can listen to music for free from a profile page or playlist, add to your favorites, send to a friend, rate it, comment on it, embed it in your profile page, feature it (it shows up on your profile page), and on and on and on. You can literally click around for hours searching for old music or new music and you find tons of options to listen to. It’s a great way to discover and listen to music. Playlist creation is the dominant feature and is a great way to discover music that is similar to other types of music you like.

The biggest drawback of the service is that there is a lot of content and things to do. The navigation and layout of all of these options can be confusing for new users and it can easy to get lost on the profile pages with all of the content boxes to choose from. However, all in all, I am now a big iMeem fan and love the content availability and music discovery options. Definitely check out this site.

Click here to read our full review of iMeem @ SiteRapture.com.

We7 is not for me

We7 is a UK-based online music service that offers consumers free, ad-supported music. The ads are shown in the form of banners and buttons on the site’s pages (approximately two ads per page). However, We7 also offers some unique forms of audio advertising with each download track from its library. When a user chooses a song and downloads it to their PC, We7 inserts an audio advertisement right before the actual song. So when the user goes to play that song, they must first hear an audio advertisement before the song plays. This advertisement disappears in 4 weeks but for 4 weeks, you have to listen to this annoying audio ad every time you go to listen to your track.

Now mind you, I am a fan of free ad-supported music but come on. Hearing an audio advertisement when I am entertaining friends at home or when I have music blasting loud in my truck is not cool. However, that’s the price they charge for free music so you can either pay a small fee (99 pence) for the track, or endure the ad from the free download. The decision is yours.

As far as the service goes, I am not a big UK music fan as I am not from the UK but it seems like they don’t have a lot of the major label music a UK music fan would expect. You can stream 30-second clips of the songs without registering but before you can download the song or album or buy it, you music register for a free account. They offer the basic send to a friend and add to playlist options which are not very special in terms of functionality. There is not a lot of community or recommendations on the site so it’s not for those that don’t know exactly what they are looking for. You can rate music on a 5-star system but it seems like the ratings can be manipulated as I saw one artist in most of the top spots on their music charts.

From an advertiser perspective, it seems like they have not gotten any traction with their audio ads. Every song I downloaded had a We7 house advertisement and not once did I see a third party advertiser.

All in all, the service seems like they don’t have music quality content (or any content for that matter). These guys offer free music so it will always be compelling to those that don’t want to pay, however the question becomes are you willing to listen to an audio advertisement before you r song plays or just buy the song as you normally (or illegally download the song from your favorite P2P service). Time will tell what consumers think about audio ads.

Click here to see our complete review of We7 @ SiteRapture.com.

Spiral Frog: A Decent Free Music Service

For those of you that like FREE music, then Spiral Frog may be the service for you.  Spiral Frog is an online music service that allows users to download music for free. The service is advertising supported so you basically have 2-3 banner and button ads on each page which for most, is a small price to pay for free music.

SpiralFrog requires you to register before you can download or stream music. Registration is quick and requires email authentication before you can start using your account.

Once you are registered, you can search for your favorite artists/bands or songs and if Spiral Frog has licensed that content, you are able to stream the music from the page or you can download it to your PC. The downloaded files are not MP3s but are Windows Media files and Spiral Fog does not offer any type of purchase option.

Also, in order to continue using the service, SpiralFrog asks each registered user to answer questions every 120 days to reactivate your account. If you don’t answer these questions, your account will be deactivated and you can longer download music. These questions are marketing driven questions that help them serve more targeted ads to consumers. It’s annoying but I can see the value in having that information.

You can listen to 30-second clips of all available music but before you can download music, you have to download the SpiralFrog Download Manager. The download manager creates folders for song download on your PC for easy searching and also allows you to manage the content you have already downloaded. The download manager appears in your system tray (bottom right-hand area for most) and notifies you when you have a song downloading and when it’s complete. In order to download anything from music to videos from Spiral Frog, you must have the download manager running in the background. It’s not intrusive and sits in the system tray so you don’t even notice that it’s there. I have not noticed any speed reduction on my PC from running it in the background so it’s seems OK.

SpiralFrog also offers videos for download. These videos range from standard music videos from your favorite artists to instructional videos (how to do the Soulja Boy Superman Dance). The videos come in Low or Hi Res, which based on you Internet connection, can really make a difference in terms of the choppiness and quality of the viewing experience.

Spiral Frog also offers other content areas such as concert/tour search and an industry news section. Nothing mind blowing but a little more to do if you like to keep up with what’s going on in the music industry.

All in all, Spiral Frog has a solid service. The biggest drawback is the availability of content. Because the service is still trying to acquire licenses from all major labels and from indie labels, there is not a huge selection of content available for download or stream. I did a search on some of my favorite artists and found nothing, which was frustrating. Also, the site offers little on the recommendation and community side of things making searching for content laborious if you don’t really know what you are looking for and what some suggestions.

However, for the songs that I did find on the site, the download experience was great and I had no problems with the download manager or playback of any tracks. I did however find their pop-up music player annoying as it does not have typical playback controls. If you click to play a song from the Spiral Fog site, a little music player pops up and plays the music. You can’t rewind or fast forward the track which was a little odd.

In conclusion, Spiral Frog is a solid service for obtaining free music. As more songs are made available, I definitely see these guys gaining more traction in the music industry. Watch out iTunes.

Click here to read our full review of Spiral Frog @ SiteRapture.com.