• It was the first truly social music service. While Lala took a little while to get its footing, when it finally did, it was nothing short of magical. With Apple’s purchase of the service back in December, we knew this day was coming, but May 31st will still be a sad day for a lot of music fans like us. Here are some reasons we’ll miss Lala but will remain hopeful about its future as part of iTunes.

A quick history of Lala

• 2006 Lala launches as an easy way to trade CDs, similar to Netflix in some ways.
• 2007 Lala adds a free, on-demand way of listening to music. It doesn’t work at all.
• 2008 The company finally nails its most popular form, a 10¢ cloud music model.
• 2009 The company runs out of cash and sells itself to Apple for around $20 million.
• 2010 Apple shuts down the site, possibly to launch a similar iTunes version. NO! *sob*

What Lala had that nobody else did

• Simple, cheap options With songs available for a mere ten cents a piece and completely free to listen to once, it created a low barrier of entry that encouraged new listening habits.
• Easy sharing You could put a Lala embed on your site and share music with other people, legally and free; a number of sites took advantage of this model, from the AV Club to Pitchfork.
• Cloud-based freedom You could put your entire library on the site and listen anywhere. Sadly, Lala never got a chance to do what would’ve really made it a big hit – put it on the iPhone.

Why Lala got away with it

• We said, ‘consumers shouldn’t have to worry about where their files are, they should be able to play their music.’ It’s actually a huge benefit for the labels, because once Lala knows the music that you listen to, it makes perfect sense to say, ‘hey, Wilco has a new album coming out.’
• Lala CEO Bill Nguyen • About the benefits of the cloud music service to record companies. They were able to sell the model to them on the idea that they could provide information that might encourage future purchases. One thing that Nguyen noted is that when people were billed by the service, they bought one out of every five songs, most of which they found through discovery. On Lala, people weren’t simply listening to their collections. They were trying to find new songs. The model worked for eMusic already, but they broadened it.  source

So, what’s next, anyway?

• Well, it could be the next iTunes. Or not. With the service’s recent acquisition by Apple, it’s entirely possible that they’ll take this model and completely make it theirs. Or they might ditch certain parts of it and focus exclusively on the cloud service. Lala was out of money by the end, so they couldn’t see the idea through. But Apple, as you might know, has a ton of money and clout to pull this idea off. Or they could stick with their walled garden approach. We’ll see.

Let’s remember how great it was, guys.

• Post on Twitter about how much you’ll miss the little music locker that could, and we’ll reflect it here. Might as well, right? The tags #riplala or “lala.com” will work just fine. source

• Back in February, we gave Bieber a deeper analysis than he’s probably ever gotten at any other point in his career. Now, we’ve done it again – all-updated-like – for AOL News. Here’s a fun fact: Our boy the Bieb is responsible for approximately 23 million tweets over the last six months, which sounds like a lot until you consider it’s out of nearly 8 billion. Still though. It’s a freaking lot. OK, we need to take a shower. We know way too much about the teen heartthrob. We might be mistaken as a fan. source

• We get it, man. 50 states is a lot of work, and most human beings wouldn’t dare take on such a monumental task. But you’ve done it twice already, and both times you nailed it. Since then, though, you’ve been kind of quiet – running a label, blogging and producing other bands. You’ve done little things: Christmas music, a comp appearance and a song that this guy is hoarding for listening parties in his Brooklyn apartment.

• We get it, man. 50 states is a lot of work, and most human beings wouldn’t dare take on such a monumental task. But you’ve done it twice already, and both times you nailed it. Since then, though, you’ve been kind of quiet – running a label, blogging and producing other bands. You’ve done little things: Christmas music, a comp appearance and a song that this guy is hoarding for listening parties in his Brooklyn apartment.
• Keep going, bro! Four years ago this week, you released “Illinois,” a truly epic combination of everything that makes you great. Since then, you released the outtakes from that album, but no third state is forthcoming. It’s not like you’re lacking in subject matter: Minnesota, North Dakota, Nevada and South Carolina just to name four topics. On this Independence Day, here’s our wish, Sufjan: Come home. We miss you. :(

• OK, we were skeptical of WeFollow. But we get it. You get Twitter better than the rest of us. And it’s already a massive hit with you Tweeters.

• We didn’t realize how lame TinyURL was until the DiggBar, which is like a Mr. Goodbar with fewer peanuts and more goodness.

• Rose always has this way of leaking information about stuff early, and he was first to the gate with Tesla Model S pics. *fawn*