Computer biggie Apple is looking to expand its music-centric strategy, with a source in-the-know having informed The Associated Press (AP) that the company is currently engaged in advanced- stage acquisition talks with Lala Media, a Silicon Valley online music retailer.

The Palo Alto, California-based Lala is a private company which was launched in 2006. The $35 million venture capital investment in the company came from Bain Capital, Ignition Partners and Warner Music Group.

The three-year-old startup, which banked heavily on its fast song-streaming application to threaten "the end of the MP3," has apparently undergone a financially turbulent period this year.

The startup lost nearly 50 percent of its value when it announced that it was writing down $11 million of the Warner Music Group's $20 million investment in the company last year.

At present, the Lala charges 10 cents from the users for allowing them permanent access to 'Web songs,' which can be streamed through a Web browser. However, the users cannot download the songs to either a computer's hard drive or to portable music players like iPods.

In addition, Lala is also presently developing an Apple iPhone app that would notably widen the reach of its service, as it would make Lala Web songs available 'on the go' by means of the wireless Internet connection of the phone.