Online Music Store Differences

It seems like every year we look at the differences between the big 3 music stores of Amazon MP3, Google Play and iTunes, and every year they're the same in some ways, and different in others. While subscription streaming music is trending in an upward direction, it's nowhere near critical mass yet, so buying downloads is still a big business. PC World recently ran a great article regarding the latest state of the download content business and below you'll find the salient points of the post.

• Tablets now allow new access to the online music stores, with the Nexus Q and Android tablet providing direct access to a Google Play stream, Kindle Fire to Amazon's music and video stores, and of course, and the iPad for Apple's iTunes.

• All stores have lots of content. iTunes now has over 28 million songs, Amazon hosts more than 20 million, and Google Play isn't saying exactly, but it's plenty more than you can listen to in a lifetime.

• The pricing really varies. Current songs and movies are pretty much the same across all 3, but catalog in both music and video varies.

• The real differences between them all is in the video offerings. Each service has a different idea of what the pricing and features model should be, with rentals and HD offerings differing.

Check out this chart for some clarity.

The article goes into detail on some of the differences, especially on the video side, so be sure to take a look if that's important to you.

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