Lala was an online music store created by Silicon Valley entrepreneur Bill Nguyen. The service allowed members to legally create online shareable "playlists" (formerly known as "radio stations") of their own uploaded music which could play full length songs for other registered Lala members, purchase MP3s, stream music on a one-time basis or as inexpensively purchased "web songs," buy new CDs from the Lala store, leave blurbs on other members' pages, and participate in the community forums. Lala contracted with major labels and offered a large catalog of albums to stream or purchase. Their home page claimed over 8 million licensed songs available.
Apple Inc. acquired Lala on December 4, 2009. On April 30, 2010, Lala announced it would be shutting down its service on May 31, 2010. They also announced they are "no longer accepting new users" and that users with credit would receive credit in Apple's iTunes store instead.
Lala shut down as scheduled on May 31, 2010. However, it still served for a while as the music engine for Billboard.com, providing full-length previews of songs on the Top 100 chart. Now, Billboard.com uses MySpace Music as its provider.
