Bye Bye Lala

It's been a while since I've been actually happy because of something on the web.

The more I learn about it. The more I code and design. The less it matters to me. The thing itself. It's meaningless and mostly serves as a void of memorable stimulation in my life.

It's work.

My son asked me, after spending half the day with me in my cubicle at Dell, "Dad...(always a 20 second pause for pre-launch calibration), why did you decide to do that for a job?"

Silence.

Left turn signal tick.

"Uhm...."

I think I gave a short lecture on the importance of weighing options before making a commitment. Alluded to college. Mostly said that I kinda fell into it over the years.

This may sound silly, but I remember when I fell head over heals for the web. It was the world I had been sheltered from and it was now (then) mine. All I had to do to be part of it, really part of it, was learn HTML. Then Flash. Then Javscript and PHP and mySQL and everything else.

Enter the learning grind.

I love learning. But, learning for its own sake is a hell I prefer to avoid. I need, I must apply something I've learned. I must DO something with it. It must bring something back for me. It must return something to me from all the effort I give. I want reciprocation from my learning and efforts to apply it.

Enter Lala. The giver. The generously smart thing on the web.

I was actually happy when I found lala in late 2009. Happy.

I'm sad to see it go. Sad that Apple, a company who's business and design decisions usually make sense to me, usually make me happier than not, is the company that's responsible for this goodbye.

I can't imagine being as happy about online music technology as I was with lala.com, again. But then, I'm not really imagining, yet.

We'll see. Hear, rather.