
New Google Play Music All Access subscription service - llambda
http://thenextweb.com/google/2013/05/15/google-play-music/
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untog
Two complaints: what is with Google's naming these days? "Google Play Music
All Access"? If Gmail was launched today it would have been called Google+
Mail Unlimited. What's wrong with "Google Music"?

Secondly- why would I use this over a specialist like Spotify or Rdio? I know
why Google want me to, but as of right now I don't see the benefits from
switching to a specialist provider that is dedicated to music to a generalist
company that has a passing interest in the area.

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k-mcgrady
The product is Google Music. All Access is a feature of the product. In the
same way Google + is a product and Hangouts (Google + Hangouts) is a feature
of that product. (Although I'm not sure why they through Play in the name.
Take that out and the name is fine).

~~~
doughj3
The product name is actually "Google Play Music". It had been "Google Music"
during the beta and before the change from the Android Market to Google Play.

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dm8
Honest question, why does google want to get into every damn online market?
They are freaking awesome at launching moonshots like Self-driving cars,
maps/streetview, Glass etc. why they even care about 'smaller problems'
(comparitively) like online music that is fraught with licensing problems and
lawyers?

There are so many problems in the world that Google could solve with it's
resources and can turn into billion dollar markets. They are pretty much
becoming MSFT rather than AAPL in doing so.

~~~
dpcx
You can't index all of the world's data unless you have all of the world's
data...

~~~
acangiano
Plus supposedly smaller problems can become in time much bigger ones. Basic
for Atari was a small problem.

~~~
dm8
Well, online music is not particularly new or smaller problem.

The problem is online music is fraught with litigation challenges. Of course,
only GOOG or any other tech giant could fight them off with their resources.
But at the end of the day, will it really lead to multi-billion dollars in
returns?

~~~
acangiano
I'm not defending their choice per se, but I can see how they see this move as
potentially worth the trouble. It could for example give them an edge when it
comes to the adoption of Android devices. Directly it might not generate
enough revenue, but it can be an important piece within an all-encompassing
ecosystem they are trying to create, where the whole is greater than the sum
of its parts.

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rlu
No word on number of songs in the catalog? More than Spotify? Less? What about
vs. xbox music?

~~~
glomph
Probably less as they didn't talk about it.

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lawdawg
Pricing is $9.99/month or $7.99/month if you sign up soon (I think he said in
the first 30 days).

~~~
sixothree
I don't see where you can sign up at all.

~~~
ben1040
<http://play.google.com/music/listen>

This gave me an option to sign up. I can play music through the web, but
there's no update to the phone app yet.

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mtgx
They should've released this since Google Music. I was surprised they released
a service with such an "obsolete" business model of actually selling songs,
like iTunes, last year, when they should be looking forward. But I guess there
are still a lot of people who'd rather buy each song for $1 than pay $10 a
month. Still, they should've launched both.

Now, where's the Netflix competitor? That should've arrived a long time ago,
too. And what about a books subscription service? Are they still serious
enough about Google Books to do that?

I don't know, it's just surprising to me that an "innovative" company like
Google chooses to _replicate_ decade old business models with their ever so
slight take on it, instead of trying to come up with their own _disruptive_
business models. They can't just enter in a market 5-10 years later with
marginal improvements and expect to beat the leaders just because they are
"big".

~~~
bdowney
The Netflix competitor is paid Youtube channels, except it only works in a few
countries and it's not as good as Netflix.

Google has bet everything on social and are creating these satellite services
to fuel G+ usage and adoption. You won't see anything revolutionary coming out
of GOOG for a while.

I currently use Spotify and there is no way I'll be switching to a Google
product. In fact I'm trying to reduce my dependence on Google products.

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theg2
The lack of integration (and overall terrible UI) of Spotify is actually one
of the key things to drive me from Android to Windows Phone for a subscription
music service.

It's not perfect, but this makes me a little bit curious about Android again,
maybe in 2 years I'll jump ship again but Microsoft has a pretty solid
offering at this point and a sizable lead in the subscription music market.

~~~
untog
What's bad about the Spotify app on Android? It's one of the best designed out
there, as far as I can see.

~~~
mrud
Doesn't auto rotate, widget doesn't really work, playlist resume didn't work
for a long time etc.

~~~
dkrich
Add to that the inability to sort playlists. Finding songs in your "Starred
Tracks" is an epic pain in the ass.

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gergles
They finally fixed that in the most recent update (as of about a week ago?)
They also added filtering, so you no longer have to just blindly scroll around
to find a song.

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2mur
Happy with Rdio. Sticking with them.

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k-mcgrady
US only whereas all their main competitors are available in more markets and
have more features (from what I've seen through the I/O demo of the service).
Definitely starting on the back foot.

~~~
Zikes
Wasn't Spotify UK-only when it first started?

Music licensing is a difficult and likely very expensive thing. It's
reasonable to assume they're launching US-only and building revenue first,
then tackling worldwide as they are able.

~~~
k-mcgrady
It was started in Sweden so I presume they launched there. The UK was one of
the early markets though but they were in several European countries very
quickly.

I know that licensing is difficult and takes time but Google has plenty of
money. They don't need to build revenue in one country before they can launch
in another. They need to launch everywhere to get uptake on this, especially
when the market is so competitive.

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simba-hiiipower
> _The service will combine music from your locker with ‘millions’ of songs on
> the service itself seamlessly, says Yerga._

any details around the locker component; namely storage size?

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willy1234x1
I believe it's the current 20,000 song upload limit they have.

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delive
I'm trying to enable my trial and am getting "Server error. Try again later"

I'm working in Ireland right now trying to use my US account. Perhaps they
don't have an out of country error?

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jimmar
It seems odd that it's more expensive to stream music than it is movies. At
least you get the latest content, I suppose, rather than movie streamings'
limited content.

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zachlatta
I wonder what the pricing will be like for this. I'm excited to see how it
competes with Spotify and similar.

~~~
ben1040
$9.99/month, per the keynote announcement.

~~~
zachlatta
Sign me up!

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henrik_w
So basically radio? Not at all as attractive as Spotify, where you create your
own playlists (that, and off-line mode on my phone are the two killer features
of Spotify for me).

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bitskits
No, it also includes playlists and albums in addition to radio.

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henrik_w
OK, I mis-read the post (I guess "full access to streaming library" implies
playlists).

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thoughtcriminal
Microsoft is already doing this with XBox Pass (I'm a subscriber) and its a
great value unless you're a hater of music.

Its cool because you can experiment all you want with new music and not run up
huge bills. Its okay to get into music again.

