Just when you though the music industry had seen it all, web service lala.com re-launched today with a new spin on digital music. This is the third iteration of Lala, which has been around since 2006. First, it was a CD-swapping service, then a free (ad supported) web-based music streaming service. This time around, Lala has come up with a cheap, ad-free way of exploring new music with different levels of ownership.

Here is how it works: you can listen to any song on the site for free once. Then, you can buy “web songs” for 10 cents each and stream them from the website whenever you want. If you then want a downloadable DRM-free version of the song (so you can play them on your iPods), you can get it for 79 cents more. This allows you to gradually explore new music in a space that is ad-free. In the current advertisement-overloaded web, this is a refreshing and welcome approach.

Lala makes it easy for you to discover new songs by adding to the mix social networking features that let you ‘follow’ other people and see what they listen to (you can see who is following you and block them if you are uncomfortable with the idea). You can also upload the music that you currently own into the Lala cloud by downloading their ‘Music Mover’ client. As it finds music that you own on your computer, it will automatically give you ownership of the songs on the web site so that you can now play them from any browser. If some of the MP3s that you have cannot be matched on Lala’s digital library, you can just upload them.

Essentially, lala.com is similar to an implementation of iTunes in the cloud that allows you to create a copy of your music in a remote location and to explore new music inexpensively. In addition to allowing you to access your music from any browser without any other client installed, this lets you easily backup your music remotely. As we’ve covered in our data backup series of articles, remote backup is an important component, and Lala could add an extra layer of security for you when you consider the persistence of your entertainment media.

Although lala.com is entering one of the most competitive markets out there today, it seems to be off to a solid start with over 6 million songs from all four major recording labels (Sony, Universal, Warner and EMI) and a well thought-out, comprehensive solution that does not involve bombarding you with brain-washing advertisement. Best of luck to them.

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