But then news broke, first by TechCrunch, that Google planned to use Lala’s service as a back-end infrastructure for a new music search feature to enhance its overall search offering.

Then things got wilder, when Facebook suddenly pushed up its announcement that it, too, planned to unveil a Lala-based music plan. Rather than stick to its plan to begin a limited roll-out to a small percentage of Facebook users later this week, suddenly the social networking giant confirmed its overall plan. “All of a sudden, it was like ‘we were launching right now,’” says Nguyen.

He thinks traffic from Facebook alone could increase the number of songs doled out from Lala’s servers by an order of magnitude above the 5 million or so songs it currently delivers each month. While he won’t comfirm the Google deal, it’s pretty clear it’s coming.

Of course, it’s never had to deal with tens or hundreds of millions songs a month. As such, there remains the small question of execution. But if Nguyen & Co. can keep up with rising demand, the 35-person start-up may emerge as a company to reckon with amid thd digital music industry’s walking wounded. Never one to shy away from a bold prediction, he says that “I think we’ll be one of the top two or three retailers of music within a year.” That suggests that while Apple’s lead is safe, little Lala might catch Wal-Mart and will likely pass Best Buy, Amazon, Target and Borders.