I have a new late night hobby. I build inexpensive collections of music around themes. I like the iTunes Essentials collections – music around a theme (e.g., Live Guitar Heroics), but I don’t want to spend the money ($25 in this example) for the collection. More and more I do not buy to own, I buy to access (this should be an advertising slogan). Probably 95% of the music I listen to I am at a computer with an Internet connection. This is perfect for LaLa. 89 cents to own, 10 cents for online listening.
So my hobby – use iTunes to explore interesting collections and LaLa to purchase access. I create a “playlist” for each collection and add songs for 10 cents. I imagine there are some other strategies I might use. I have books on great jazz artists that list their most famous works.
LaLa has some other interesting capabilities. It identifies music you own and gives you credit for this music – you can listen online. There are some useful applications of this opportunity that may not be readily apparent. I have two large iTunes collections (several thousand songs each) – one collection on my office machine and one on my home machine. One of the problems with this approach is that I cannot listen to music I own if I am in the wrong location. LaLa takes care of this problem.
This is a pretty cool service.