iTunes ... eh?

I started using Lala about 2 months ago - October 21st to be precise - and have been in love with it since.  I can't recall if I had read about it somewhere, or if one of my friends had invited me - but needless to say I started using it.  I got a few of my friends to start using it as well.

Lala is basically a web based iTunes ... except you can listen to every song in their catalog once for free to get a full preview (something I really think iTunes should let you do).  After which you can purchase the 'web-song' to listen only on Lala for just $0.10, or you can pay $0.89 and get a DRM-free MP3.  If you have already bought the web version, you get a $0.10 discount on the MP3.  You also get 50 free websong credits to start, and 10 additional credits for each friend you get to join!

It is generally an awesome experience, and is very easy to use.  To put icing on the cake you can download the Lala MusicMover to your home computer ... this allows you to then upload any DRM-free music you might have on your computer to Lala's servers - completely free I might add.  So basically you can access your music library, from anywhere.  Now you'd think that Apple would incorporate a service like this into MobileMe, but of course not.  That would make too much sense.

I think Lala really has the right idea ... a great web based system that can hold all your home music ... and I am on it all the time at work so I frequently buy web-songs and DRM-free MP3s (which I then also download to my home computer).  

The reason I decided to write about it today was because of a great TechCrunch rundown last week - check it out.  

You can also try out Lala by clicking here or by navigating to lala.com, but I'd prefer you click the link so I can get 10 additional free websongs :).

On the iTunes note ... my friend Danny e-mailed me a Lifehacker article about a program called Mojo.  I have not tried it but it certainly seems interesting.  You can download the DRM-free portions of your friends iTunes libraries - over the internet.  So its like Napster 2.0!!!  Yay.  Mojo is free and can be downloaded for both Mac and PC here.  The premium version allows you to actually subscribe to someones playlist - which is kind of cool.