As I expected, Lala announced a few weeks ago that it will be closing its doors on the 31st. Next to Last.fm, Lala was my favorite overall music site. The good news is that rumors are flying about a June 7th cloud-based iTunes announcement, although I doubt it will be anything near as excellent as the little-known Queen Lala (as I like to call her)… dethroned. Read on for more about the current state of online music.
As sure as the wind blows, an online music service that you use today will likely be gone (or have very limited functionality) in six months. Fortunately, most of the options I mentioned in my finding music online post from June are still viable, but I’ve found two great new sites (Lala and Grooveshark) to replace the big one that seems to have died (imeem – yeah, MySpace bought it). Of particular interest is the Lala Music Mover software which uploads your computer’s whole music collection so you can play it on their site. Main interface screen shot:
