Streaming Along

Between Apple buying LaLa and MOG making their $5-a-month debut last week, streaming music enjoyed a brighter spotlight in recent news reports. The question of whether iTunes will stream purchased music (kinda like Netflix over computers and Xboxes) is intriguing, except that you still have to be near a network connection to use it (and 3G doesn't necessarily count - still not ubiquitous enough and drains the batteries something fierce). Ultimately, though, I like the idea of the concept if it adheres to some basic tenets:

1. Sound quality - streaming from high-quality audio files is the only way to go. Sure, if the network slows down and causes problems, it doesn't matter. But take every precaution on the service side to make it reliable and usable for all.
2. Amazing and complete selecton - this means all tracks from available albums; if you bother to get one, get them all.
3. Metadata - more than artist, track, and album; give me the liner notes. You're on the Internet, after all.

I want to see how the LaLa acquisition works for iTunes, but I get the feeling it's still some time away from being truly realized. Enough time to make some good decisions and get it done the right way, hopefully.