Did Google Just Quietly Launch A Web-Based iTunes Competitor? Yep.

http://techcrunch.com/2010/05/20/um-did-google-just-quietly-launch-a-web-based-itunes-competitor-yep/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed:+Techcrunch+(TechCrunch)

by derekc • 16 years ago

79 29 16 years ago

techcrunch.com

pontifier2• 16 years ago

Good try, but still not good enough. My media startup will destroy them both.

sjwalter• 16 years ago

Care to elaborate?

pontifier2• 16 years ago

I am in the process of getting a patent on a method for distributing digital media in a unique way. I have a private proof of concept website set up now, but it is not ready to launch publicly yet (the graphical design is very rough and the selection of media is extremely limited at this time).

If you would like to check it out I can set up an account for you to see how it works.

jrockway• 16 years ago

Nice. But how will it fare against my magic pony/unicorn hybrid? It lives on rainbows and magically makes money for me.

It's as real as any other thing someone on the Internet claims to have, anyway...

loire280• 16 years ago

Do music stores even matter anymore? Selling DRM-free MP3 downloads is a commodity business if I've ever seen one. The only trick is getting labels to sign on. Besides, syncing is an essential part of buying MP3 music: you don't want your music library only stored on your easily-lost cellphone, do you?

Anyone know if Google's music store lets you re-download songs? If not, I imagine there's going to be more than a few people who have to re-buy a bunch of albums because they lost their never-synced phone.

enomar• 16 years ago

Selling mp3s may not be the point. This may just be a really great feature that helps sell phones. Certainly, iTunes integration is a major selling point for iPhones.

RyanMcGreal• 16 years ago

"Commoditize your complement"

http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/StrategyLetterV.html

swilliams• 16 years ago

Will this be an adequate replacement for Lala? It sounds like it might be.

cageface• 16 years ago

I've switched over to Mog.com, which in many ways I actually prefer to Lala.

AGorilla• 16 years ago

Techcrunch is using the term "launch" loosely here.

endlessvoid94• 16 years ago

and "quietly"

jsz0• 16 years ago

Downloading a lot of music over the cellular data network is a bit scary to me. Is it really wise? That's a lot of bandwidth being devoted to a task that can be accomplished faster and more efficiently by just plugging in a USB cable. Phones are personal devices -- it's not like they're too far out of reach at any given time. It would probably be more responsible for this feature to only work over wifi at least until the US data networks catch-up with current demand. I don't want to suffer with slow speeds because someone has their SmartPhone 6 inches from their computer doing OTA downloads of 80MB albums instead of plugging in a cable. I suspect some carriers will disable this feature on their devices. The OTA/web app downloading on the other hand makes perfect sense. Fairly small apps -- stuff you'd be downloading on your phone anyway.

swernli2• 16 years ago

My guess is that much of the syncing and streaming will require the devices to be on the same local subnet/wifi. Otherwise things get hairy, as you pointed out.

zmmmmm• 16 years ago

A lot of apps allow you to enable different behavior based on what kind of connection you have. I'd be very surprised if this didn't also.

dalore• 16 years ago

People were downloading audio cd's at 33.6k and slower.

barredo2• 16 years ago

There was not other option of downloading at that time.

michaelbuckbee• 16 years ago

A few things to consider:

- Most music purchases are individual songs.

- Lots of people are streaming music to their phones all the time anyway (Pandora, etc)

- There is a class of users that _only_ uses their phone and doesn't have a computer.

I guess my point isn't that I don't think US data networks can catch up. Each increase in speed will increase the utility of the network and increase the utilization until we "top out" at phones, iPads and all sorts of devices constantly being connected.

fierarul• 16 years ago

This seems very conservative. Let's not worry about the poor US carriers getting so much business these days.

In the EU I have an unlimited 3G subscription for about 10 eur. It's probably capped in some way but always got the job done (albeit sometimes very slowly). Why should I worry that the data network is overloaded when the carrier here sells this thing. It's probably illegal to sell a service you know you cannot provide.

barredo2• 16 years ago

> In the EU I have an unlimited 3G subscription for about 10 eur.

Where? I'm also in EU and I only get "unlimited 3.6Mbps 3G" for 21€/mo, but after the first gigabyte it get's downgraded to 64kbps...

buster• 16 years ago

Everywhere where i have a desktop computer, i also have Wifi. My mobile would download over Wifi, without having to carry around a cable just for the chance to get some files on the device.

Also, 3G downloadspeed has always been around 200kB/s for me.. that's fine for the times i have no wifi.

louislouis• 16 years ago

Getting things in place for 4G and more.

Did Google Just Quietly Launch A Web-Based iTunes Competitor? Yep.

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