After the joy (and surprising popularity) of Spotify the other day, my palm is firmly back on my face thanks to Lala and their launch of “web songs” – cut price music that’s locked up tighter than a… actually I probably shouldn’t pursue that simile any further.

Lala is offering music for 10 cents a track. “Great!”, you cry. But wait a sec. The only way they’ve got the record labels to agree is to limit you to only listening to that song in your browser. You’re essentially paying 10 cents for something that you can get for free on Spotify, Last.FM, MySpace, or even YouTube, for god’s sake. As the unnamed head of a digital music service once said, “you want the world’s best on-demand music service? Go to YouTube and close your eyes…”