Google Music Not Cutting It So Far

When Google introduced it's music cloud service November, the general consensus was that it was a can't miss project. After all, there were already 200 million activated Android phone and tablet users, and if it only converted 10 percent of their captured market, that would mean 20 million users.

Now word is beginning to leak out of every corner of the music business world that everyone is concerned about Google Music's very slow adoption rate. With Google being one of the 800 pound gorillas in the cloud music room, that's the last thing that anyone expected.

What's more, while Google does have licenses with 3 of the major labels, it has yet to obtain a license from Warner Bros to be able to offer their catalog, and it's unlikely that they will if things continue to go as it is now.

But don't count Google Music out just yet. Two weeks ago The Wall Street Journal reported that Google is building a wireless home entertainment system that will stream music throughout the home. Even if this were a big hit, and I can't see it making a huge difference for Google Music, but it may be just enough to turn the tide from one that's perceived as failing to one that's a borderline success.

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You should follow me on Twitter for daily news and updates on production and the music business.

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Online Music Store Showdown

Now that Google Music has finally officially launched on the back of iCloud, we can finally get down to the business of the online music business. Here's a chart form Huffpost Tech that outlines the features of the big 3 online music stores: Amazon MP3, iTunes and Google Music.

Who will win? I think that in the near future, iTunes will be hard to beat, but their market share will erode with time as Google Music gains some traction. Plus you can't beat the fact that they're the only one with an easy to use desktop app (which is what iTunes rally is - the front end to the digital music store).

We'll revisit this chart in a few months when the numbers are in to see how they stack up against each other market-share wise.

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Check out my Big Picture blog for discussion on common music, engineering and production tips and tricks.

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Google Music Finally Launches

After months of public beta, Google Music has finally launched. For those of you who aren't familiar with it yet, Google Music is the big G's version of iCloud, which is a cloud-based locker for storing your music online and accessing it from any device at any time. While it's too early to have many definitive impressions, here's what we know so far.

1) When Google Music launched in beta earlier this year, it had exactly zero licenses from the major labels, a fact that didn't make negotiating with them afterwards none too easy. That said, GM officially launched with agreements from Universal Music Group, EMI, and at the last minute, Sony Music, as well as a host of independents. It's probably only a matter of time until Warner Music falls in line as well. I haven't heard what the license fees were yet, but regardless the amount paid, you can bet that most artists won't see much of it. The Google Music store will start off with about 13 million songs available.

2) It's free to the end-user for up to 20,000 songs, which should satisfy the music collections of the vast majority of users (that's about 2,000 albums worth).

3) Their "Artist Hub" section of the service allows anyone to directly upload, manage, and sell music without the need for a middleman like Tuncore or CDBaby. They say they'll pay artists 70% of the sale price and only charge a one-time upfront fee of $25.

 4) T-Mobile customers will soon be able to pay for their music purchases directly through their phone bills, as they currently can with purchases from the Android Market. This is something that the music industry has wanted for ages.

5) Users will be able to put iTunes music into their music lockers, and the Google Music Manager is even supposed to retain users’ playlists and ratings.

6) As you would expect, Google+ is connected to Google Music, making it easy to share songs and playlists either publicly or with select groups of friends through the network’s Circles feature.

Out of all of these points, I think that the Artist Hub is a big deal and it should be interesting to see if iTunes follows with something similar. Right now you pretty much need an aggregatorlike Tunecore to get your songs on iTunes and it takes some time for that to happen. Let's see if Google Music has streamlined the process any.

We'll keep an eye on Google Music in the coming days and report any new info that we find.

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You should follow me on Twitter for daily news and updates on production and the music business.

Check out my Big Picture blog for discussion on common music, engineering and production tips and tricks.

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5 Things You Should Know About Cloud Music Services

Now that both Amazon and Google have launched their cloud music services, we're just waiting for Apple to complete the triumvirate with their imminent launch. In case you're not clear, a cloud music service (sometimes called a "music locker") stores your music on an online server then delivers it to any of your music playback devices. Before you choose a service though, here are a few facts you should know.

1. Why is a cloud music service so cool? Because you won't fill up half your hard drive with only music if it's stored online for one thing. You'll be able to access your music from any device that connects to the Internet, so you're not restricted to only the device that has your music loaded on it.

2. You have to manually upload your music on both Google Music and Amazon Cloud Drive. Because both Google and Amazon didn't get permission from the record labels, for right now at least you have to manually upload your entire library if you want access to it. That could take hours and hours depending upon how large the library and the speed of your Internet connection.

3. But you won't need to upload everything on Apple's service. That's the whole key about doing a deal with the record labels; if the service sees that you've already paid for a song or sees the song on your hard drive, it automatically loads a copy into your storage locker without you having to upload it. That means that you're uploading time can theoretically be a few minutes instead of hours and hours.

4. Apple also has a strategic advantage by doing the deals with the labels. If and when Amazon and/or Google decide that they really should have these deals in place, it's going to cost them a lot more to get the deal done. Apple has already set the deal precedent with their label agreements so they won't be getting better for the other two as a result. Any additional costs will get passed on the to consumer, so the Apple service may end up being cheaper than the other two in the long run.

5. Apple's service has another cool feature. Reportedly it pre-caches of a portion of the each song in your library on your player so that as soon as you choose a song, it instantly plays without having to wait to communicate with the cloud first unlike the other services.

The Apple announcement regarding the release of their cloud service is supposed to be any day now, and until that time, we won't have a real head-to-head comparison of services to look at. That said, cloud music is here to stay and it's just a matter of time before it becomes widely adopted.
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Help support this blog. Any purchases made through our Amazon links help support this website with no cost to you.

You should follow me on Twitter for daily news and updates on production and the music business.

Check out my Big Picture blog for daily discussion of music, recording, and production tips and tricks.

Google's Music Service Launch

On Tuesday Google did a beta launch of their new music service, called "Music Beta By Google." The service includes a free cloud music locker, a music player and integration with an updated Android music app.

The interesting thing is that Google, like Amazon (who recently launched their Amazon Cloud Player), went ahead with their soft launch without the permission of the major record labels. One of the reasons why Google might feel comfortable in doing so is that Music Beta doesn't include any sort of download store or streaming service that generates money, unlike what you'll likely to see from Apple soon. I'd say that the whole idea of the the record labels looking to be paid a second time for a purchase lockered in a cloud service like Music Beta can probably be put to rest now. Obviously both Google and Amazon feel legally comfortable with their position or they wouldn't have gone ahead with their services as they have.

Personally I don't see what the big deal is in terms of getting label permission to store songs. The only thing beyond cloud storage that a locker service offers at this point is a custom music player, although the labels feel that the ability to stream music that you've purchased on any device that you own to be somehow worth an additional payment. Good luck on that guys. It looks like that game is over.

One thing that's worth thinking about though - you still have to upload all of your music to whatever locker service you go with (meaning Google or Amazon, presumably not so with Apple's when it's launched), which can be a huge pain. Music Beta reportedly attempts to ease the pain by automatically determining what songs you listen to most and uploading them to the service first. The thing that label permission does is alleviate the need to upload, since the service will just look to see what songs you have on your drive, and allocate them for use in the cloud.

To sign up for a Music Beta invite, click here, then click on "Request an Invitation" in the upper right corner. Here's a video that explains the service.

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Help support this blog. Any purchases made through our Amazon links help support this website with no cost to you.

You should follow me on Twitter for daily news and updates on production and the music business.

Check out my Big Picture blog for daily discussion of music, recording, and production tips and tricks.