Lala.com Is Reborn

Relaunching Today

First a CD-trading site, then a free Web-based music browser, LALA.COM is being born again. The site is relaunching TODAY (10/21) as a hybrid, offering the digital download functionality of iTUNES and the free music streaming of MYSPACE MUSIC without the ads.

The PALO ALTO, CA-based private company, backed by $35 million in venture capital from BAIN CAPITAL LLC, IGNITION PARTNERS and WARNER MUSIC GROUP CORP., first launched in JULY 2006. This time around, listening to any of the six million tracks will be free. It will cost 10 cents to put a song in a Web locker for unending access on any computer where the user logs in.

Another 79 or 89 cents allows the user to download an mp3 track with no digital rights management coding.

Because the site is ad-free, the business relies on selling Web tracks and mp3s. The site has the participation of all four major record labels .

SONY MUSIC ENTERTAINMENT Pres./Global Digital Business THOMAS HESSE said a key reason for licensing music to LALA.COM and other sites like it was the ability to sell music downloads. "We do streaming deals that also have an upsell opportunity," HESSE said. "To us, that is an important side-by-side concept."

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