Trading CDs with Lala
Submitted by jim on Mon, 06/12/2006 - 07:38
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Trade a CD for $1 with Lala. Has anybody out there tried this service?
Trade a CD for $1 with Lala. Has anybody out there tried this service?
My tastes are apparently too obscure for Lala. There's are any more CDs I want that are actually available there.
With Peerflix, it's pretty easy to send out all your movies (I almost instantly sent out most of my DVD collection), but again, very difficult to find something I want that is available or not on "Long Wait."
BookMooch: lala for books.
Great news! I just picked up a copy of The String Quartet Tribute to AC/DC! I'm so excited to hear the album, it sounds awesome!
Well done AJ, you scored my first LOL of the day. Thanks!
Mine, too.
Seriously, the CD is so bad. This one in particular (out of the 40+ string quartet tributes I've heard) sounds like a synthesized string quartet synced to AC/DC MIDI files, not a performing chamber ensemble. It reminds me of the old Beethoven sonatas CD I had years ago (bought at WalMart for $2.98 or something) that I swear to God was a few Beethoven MIDIs rendered into WAV.
In my defense, I got hooked on string quartet tribute albums when I heard a string quartet tribute to Radiohead perform "Karma Police," which as you might be able to imagine, sounds awesome as a string quartet.
Hey, if you like string quartet tributes and the like, you should track down The Joe Trio if you can. They're a Vancouver group who do an amazing piece called something like A brief history of music (with apologies to Harry Mancini) . It's basically this string group doing "The Pink Panther" theme in almost every major musical style from Bach through Mozart, Romantic, and up to Deep Purple ("Smoke on the Water"-style). Awesome.
SwapThing is like PeerFlix or Lala. Clean out your garage. Or put it on Ebay instead.
lala just updated their site a bit. Also, shipping a CD costs $1.75 now instead of $1.50, to better accomodate shipping liner notes with CDs. You also now have the option to buy some CDs immediately through lala, if you like.
It's pretty hard to get rid of (a) popular CDs and (b) crappy CDs (for me, that's lots of string quartet tributes and 90s CCM).
I figured (b) would be an issue for my collection, and that's largely what's kept me away.
Be still, my beating heart. I just got rid of The String Quartet Tribute to AC/DC! :)
Wow, impressive!
(Both that you came to own it in the first place, and that you managed to pawn it off on some poor hapless soul! :-)
Well, you don't pay until you actually ship or receive CDs, so it might be worth a shot.
The signup process was extremely simple. The interface is slick, clear Web 2.0. The way the service works is simple and intuitive, like Netflix. The collection of available (member-owned) titles is impressive but definitely not comprehensive. I'll let you know what I think if/when I actually trade a CD via the service.
Cool! Please do follow-up if you make any trades.
I just got rid of The String Quartet Tribute to Muse on lala and a crappy Scorpions live DVD on Peerflix. Genius!
I received my first CD just fine, and shipped another. Basically, you have to be shipping as many CDs as you receive to stay active. I have a limited collection of CDs I'm willing to trade, so my circulation rate will probably remain low, but I was able to send out one CD and so now another from my want list is on its way.
I should clarify that unliked Netflix or Peerflix, there's no membership fee. You only pay $1 for each CD trade, and $0.49 for each CD you ship out. Both these accumulated amounts are charged to your credit card once a month (on the date of your signup).
Unlike Peerflix, you can start receiving discs before you even ship any, but the more you ship the higher priority you are to receive discs. Still, a few hours after signup, one disc on my "want" list is already being shipped to me! I haven't added anything to my "have" list, let alone shipped anything out.
It's also worth mentioning la la's guarantee that if you don't receive a CD shipped to you, or it is unplayable, they will credit your account and give you high priority to get another copy.
The discs in my want list are mostly quite rare, so we'll see how well la la handles my tastes.
It worked well for me for about two months. I got maybe 15 CDs mixed between fairly popular and fairly rare discs. After that, people would say that they shipped a disc and I'd never get it. You can't report a disc as missing until two weeks after they say it shipped. I'm still waiting on a refund for the last 3 discs that I never got. I have since cleared my queue and deactivated my account. I'll just get music the old fashion way.