Homepage [SaveNetRadio.org]

OK, first: how does that work? Lala doesn't upload everything. Most of the songs you own are probably in its servers already; it will only upload the stuff it didn't have. If you are wondering if that includes The Beatles, Led Zeppelin and Dave Matthews Band, stuff famously not available online, it does. Lala assumes that if you own it, you have the right to it. It's a fair-use defense that makes sense, since you can't really distribute music through the service, you can only access it for your own use.

Next: what's this about my iPod? At this point in time, Lala is storing tracks as MP3 files. (I think 128Kbps, but could be greater—in the future, they say they will offer their stream at the original resolution of the track you own, but for now there's a bandwidth issue.) You can't download the tracks to a computer hard drive, but you can sideload the tracks straight to your iPod. If, and it's a big "if", you set up your iPod to sync with the service. You can't use the iPod with your iTunes again without reconfiguring it. Lala says you wouldn't need to, since it will give you access to anything you buy at iTunes, but I still think it's a bit of a leap of faith.

But what's in it for Lala? Well, for starters, the company wants to grow the music-sales business, selling cut-rate CDs and facilitating music swaps with other members. Logging your preferences is an easy way to build an oh-so-sweet customer profile, just like Amazon.com and iTunes do.

Will there be any digital tracks for sale? They have already inked a deal with Warner Music, letting you sample Warner tracks as many times as you like on the service, like a free baby Rhapsody. The company is talking with other record labels, too, so it soon could be a free alternative to Rhapsody, Napster and the like, with similar digital-download catalogs.

Is that all? With the DRM-free business taking off, the obvious next move is to sell non-DRM tracks for download to the iPod—like much of the American populace, these guys do not have any real interest in other music players. Before all of the deals are signed, there are lots of music samples available under net radio licenses, so you can easily get artist-themed user-generated radio stations a la Pandora.

How well does this whole thing work? So, it's in beta. There's a lot of stuff that doesn't make total sense yet. I'll spare you the specifics only because beta is as beta does, and frankly, free services are fun to try even if they end up screwing the pooch. Last I checked, the system was down, because the old Lala.com was giving way to the new Lala.com.

When it's back up, have a try and let me know what you think. I'm excited because a) anywhere access is just cool and b) I think what these guys are doing is a little bit crazy, and I want to see where it goes. Their last idea, the CD swapping thing, was also crazy, and I'm not sure it totally worked, but it was original enough for muchos kudos, and this idea is even more ballsy. Let's see what happens. – Wilson Rothman

Service Homepage [Lala.com]

Note: The site appears to be back up and running.

Sure, lately most people including Giz have made Pandora out to be just a victim of the dreaded Copyright Royalty Board. But clearly the Pandora's people have been doing more than just calling congressmen and woeing their own demise. Here's the whole basket of new Pandora goodies:

• Starting now, five Sprint phones will be Pandora ready, and by the end of June, Pandora says that all Power Vision phones will be good to go. If you have a Pandora.com account, you will get "seamless integration" into your phone. Besides, you will be able to create and fine-tune stations using just the phone. After a 30-day free trial, the ad-free Sprint Pandora service will cost $2.99 per month. Keep in mind, there'd be a Sprint data-service requirement of at least $15 per month on top of that, and there's no word of how good the streaming quality is, but if you already pay for Power Vision, it's probably worth a try. Below are shots of Pandora on the defunct Samsung A900; our opening shot is of the Pandora interface on the new music phone, the UpStage.

• Sonos 2.2 software release, free to all Sonos owners and immediately available, will include a 30-day free trial of Pandora, with a given station streaming simultaneously and in perfect sync to all of your rooms, or up to 32 different Pandora stations streamed to 32 different receivers at the same time. Like the Rhapsody service offered for Sonos, the 30-day trial doesn't require a credit card; unlike Rhapsody, Pandora will cost only $36 for a full-year subscription. (You can't do as much, of course, and some people will probably want both, but it's an interesting option.)

• New Web interface, totally redesigned for "better integration of content and community." Rather than describe it, I'll just toss it in here:

• The final point of Pandora's presentation involves future applications. Wi-Fi-connected players are an obvious point. No, there is no Zune creeping into the picture (yet), but there might be a different Connect-ion: the presentation says that Pandora is showing off a Zing-enabled device. Well, the Sansa Connect is the only one of those we can think of off-hand so, like, sweet! – Wilson Rothman

Product Page [Pandora]

"Congress is calling this the grassroots campaign of the year," he says. "Office staffers say they have never received this many emails and inquiries on any issue in their congressional careers. The whole fax infrastructure of Capitol Hill was jammed for two days." (Ah, those crazy faxers.) If any of you doubts your ability to make a difference in DC, by all means keep reading.

Westergren says that the groundswell is really evidence, like the Digg riot of 2007, that people are more in control of messages thanks to the Web. "Information is becoming decentralized—now people are getting to participate. You can't mess around anymore with consumers or artists—they've got a huge megaphone. This is really the power of the people here. But this kind of power needs to be thoughtfully wielded."

I asked Westergren what it was like to find support from such unlikely allies as arch-conservative Sam Brownback. Although I assumed the cause was relatively liberal, Westergren says you can't pigeonhole net radio that way. "There's no correlation," he says. "This is not a partisan issue."

Unless something changes, July 15 will be the day that webcasters are presented a bill covering all of owed royalties dating back to the beginning of 2006, calculated using the current, oppressive rates. "Starting then," he says, "every webcaster is bankrupt, except for a couple."

The only answer, says Westergren, will come from the Capitol. "We are 100% focused on bill passage. Call your congressman or senator and ask them to support these bills. Bug them until they do it." He adds, "We're not a well-moneyed lobby, we're a young industry. There's no K Street presence here."

Well, what are you waiting for? Get to them faxes!! You may even try one of these newfangled systems for communicating with congresspersons—I'm told this "E" mail works pretty good. – Wilson Rothman

Internet Radio Coverage [Gizmodo]