US based digital music site Lala.com, who have dabbled in various digital services, most of which I've never really understood, have announced details of their latest offering. For ten cents a time people will be able to buy unlimited streaming access to a specific song. There will be no download, but for the nominal fee users will be able to stream the track on demand from any internet connection at anytime. Before parting with their ten cents, fans can preview the track for free. Reports suggest about five million tracks from all four majors and loads of indies will be available via the service – and the first fifty streams are free.
According to Digital Music News, the new service has been developed by Lala alongside Warner Music, who have made a sweet $20 million investment into the digital firm. Whether it will work remains to be seen – the challenge will be those competitors who are offering on-demand streams for free. Some of those free music streams are in theory limited listen, though arguably services like YouTube offer free on demand streaming access to pretty much any song. Presumably they'll be hoping that a better user-experience and the nominal cost they are charging will enable them to compete with free.