Michael Robertson has a post on the new Lala.com. He points to Warner Music Group's investment in the company and raises doubt about the business model. He and I differ on the new Napster MP3 store (I don't think the size of the catalog is a worthy point of differentiation) and we differ on this, too.

Will people pay ten pennies for a restricted web song with pseudo ownership? I have serious doubts. People prefer free stuff on the net and there's plenty of it. You can get full length streaming versions of U2's Pride on Napster, Imeem or even better your choice of 6 videos from YouTube for free. So what would convince someone to buy the Lala version?

The ten-cent stream rights may or may not be a big draw or a big source of revenue. At the very least, I think consumers will be able to better wrap their head around buying unlimited streams for ten cents than buying a protected music file for a dollar. Listening to music streaming on a PC is an established behavior. People obviously accept the limitations inherent in streaming audio.

The ability to stream any song just once -- and a person can stream an entire album once as well -- could end up being a good enticement to purchase. The key to Lala.com success will be the degree to which is makes finding, sampling and buying music easy. In my opinion, it is an excellent source for doing all three.

Robertson does point out that purchasing the right to stream a song is worth something only as long as the company is a going concern. But at ten cents each, I personally wouldn't worry about it. The loss of an infinite number of song streams is far better than the inability to play a purchased Windows Media file because Microsoft stopped supporting the DRM. For ten cents a track, I'd recoup my investment pretty quickly.

Extra credit reading: Slashdot has an entry on Robertson's post. If you need some amusement, scroll through the comments and note how many people don't realize you can stream music as well as purchase MP3s. Quite a few commentators obviously never got past the title of the post ("Would You Rent A Song For A Dime?") and complain that Lala.com is not giving people DRM-free music.