Apple acquires Lala Media - WSJ, NY Times

"Apple Inc. acquired online music company Lala Media Inc., possibly signaling an expansion of the computer giant's music strategy," Ethan Smith and Yukari Iwatani Kane report for The Wall Street Journal. "Terms could not be learned."

"Palo Alto, Calif.,-based Lala lets users pay 10 cents for permanent access to 'Web songs' that can be streamed via a Web browser but cannot be downloaded to a user's computer hard drive or to portable players like iPods," Smith and Kane report. "But the three-year-old company is developing an iPhone app that would greatly expand the service's reach, by making Lala Web songs available on the go via the phone's wireless Internet connection."

"Lala has faced some financial turbulence this year. Warner Music Group Corp. in 2008 disclosed that it had invested $20 million in Lala," Smith and Kane report. Then earlier this year the company announced it was writing down $11 million of that investment, signaling that the startup had lost nearly 50% of its value."

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