LaLa: The Music Pusher - First One's Free...

Don't take my headline as criticism, because I am really impressed by LaLa, the online music service that lets you buy pro and pro-am songs for as little as ten cents. I call them a pusher, because the first play of any song is free.

But there is a lot more to this service than just that. You can also upload your entire music collection lickety split, and then listen to it wherever there is an Internet question.

The cost of new songs can be a lot lower than with iTunes or similar services, particularly if you are willing to limit your listening to places with a connection. For those environments, the cost per song is just 10 cents. To buy songs, the rate is 89 cents.

There are six million songs available -- from a broader range of musicians than services that focus purely on major labels. And every song is compatible with either iTunes or WMP.

The service offers a huge range of music in a broad variety of genres:

Alternative
Blues
Children
Classical
Comedy
Country
Easy Listening
Electronic
Folk
Hip-Hop
Holiday Music
Jazz
Latin
Metal
New Age
Oldies
Pop
Praise & Worship
Punk
R&B
Reggae
Rock
Soul
Soundtrack
Spoken Word
World Music

I think the beauty of this is the box it puts Apple in. A service like LALA is really geared to people content to listen to music only when they have a connection. So not for current iPODs. BUT. Can a connected iPod really be that far away? And if not, will it offer a Kindle-like everywhere connection? If so, there won't be any need to buy songs when you can just get unlimited digital access for a lot less.

It's also cool that you get to listen to an entire song before buying, versus the :30 segment Apple offers. All kidding aside, the first free play makes this service a must try for any real musicophile.

And good news for the music biz -- I bet that a dime is a fee even the most committed MP3 pirate will find acceptable!

Thanks for reading, and don't forget to write.