Apple Has Officially Acquired Lala!

This morning was buzzing with technology gossip in regards to the rumor of Apple buying Lala. Everyone from CNET, Wired, and the New York Times has reported their concern over this monopoly, and now we are reporting that Apple has officially acquired Lala. It’s done.

As if Apple weren’t already dominating all music businesses already, they have now have successfully bought their way into the “cloud” music industry where they can offer full streaming as well. At first the news may write Apple as a greedy company who determines to stay on top. However, you’ll be surprised to learn how it all initially went down. More info after the jump!

According to The Washington Post, New York Times Tech reporter who had an in with the behind-the-scenes deal has very recently tweeted, “Apple has acquired digital music start-up Lala. Now updating our story.”

If you’re a user of Lala, this raises many questions. Start-up company, Lala, who has been around for just three years and originally a CD-swapping service turned into a site, offered streaming anytime and anywhere from the web. It had similarities to Pandora and Last.fm, except Lala had the upper hand because you could upload your entire iTunes music library onto the site and listen.

The relationship between Lala users allowed their followers to stream any recently song played from a library. The whole point was that you didn’t have to download at all. Lala also offered mp3s for just 10 cents a song instead of the 99 cent value iTunes proposed. No one knows if the full streaming and unbelievably cheap pricing will stay put.

Another important aspect to note is that Lala joined other “cloud” sites such as Imeem, Rhapsody, and iLke as part of Google‘s Discover Music feature in Google’s browser just a few weeks ago. If Apple drastically changes anything on Lala, a majority of the stream-for-free tracks will be affected when users choose Discover Music and Music OneBox from Google as well as Lala gifts on Facebook.

The surprising part of this giant buy-out is that Lala was actually the one who initiated the deal. The Washington Post reports (via The Times):

“One person with knowledge of the deal, but who was not authorized to discuss it, said that the negotiations originated when Lala executives concluded that their prospects for turning a profit in the short term were dim and initiated discussions with Eddy Cue, Apple’s vice president in charge of iTunes.This person said Apple would primarily be buying Lala?s engineers, including its energetic co-founder Bill Nguyen, and their experience with cloud-based music services.”

All in all, Apple has taken interest in a start-up company who had a very organized design – a design that is somewhat iTunes in disguise – and of course, they are taking talent that started within Lala.

Many indie users may not agree with the Apple corporation taking over because indie is all about DIY and start-ups. However, Apple has always managed to stay in the lead with design, technology, and user-friendliness. With Lala, they’ll be able to make things easier for users as well as offer peace of mind that comes along with their established name.

As for Lala… They initiated it, will be transferring to Apple policies and working under them. Perhaps, the trade-off doesn’t seem too bad for them in the end.

What do you think of Apple buying Lala? Will this be beneficial in the end or become an annoyance?