Cloud Computing and Music

Posted by Flick in Opinions on 12 9th, 2008 | 11 responses |

The way you store, access and interact with your digital music collection is about to change over the coming years. You’ll no longer store your music files on a hard drive or flash drive but rather in a cloud of servers scattered around the world. Your net-devices will access your library collection wirelessly, streaming from remote servers. Exchange your Notebook for a Netbook because you’ll no longer think about downloading music files to your computer… you won’t need a massive storage system anymore. Music players, such as the iPod Touch, already has the capabilities to mobilize your entire music library.

All of this will be done through ‘cloud computing,’ the buzz word of industry insiders in `08. You’ll no longer store your files on your personal computer. Instead, your files will be scattered in a cloud of servers around the world. Everything from your operating system to your digital photos will no longer be stored on your local PC.

Digital stores, such as iTunes, will most likely offer unlimited access to millions of songs for a monthly fee, similar to Rhapsody or Ruckus but on a much larger scale. This has been debated in the past and many suspected it would happen sooner, but the advent of cloud computing will force the recording industry to face the issue. Artists will be paid royalties based on song plays and not sales, splitting revenues from ads sold via page views.

There is a new easy-to-use site called CloudSound, a perfect tool for record labels, bands, blogs and promotion agencies. Create an account and you can upload songs, add information about the song. From there you can either keep the song private or share it publicly. You’re given a dropbox that you can share with your friends or on your website. The dropbox enables other people to upload music into your CloudSound account. You can embed songs or playlists and enable others to directly download the files. With an open API developers will create powerful tools for CloudSound; yesterday they launched the Cloud Player where you can create playlists (and smart playlists) from songs uploaded by CloudSound members. The purpose of CloudSound isn’t to store all of your music, but it does hint at what is coming.

The original founder of Mp3.com has launched a new service called Mp3tunes. Mp3tunes offers 2gb of free space to upload music (you can pay for more space if need be). Once you have added music to your locker you can stream your collection either via a Flash player or through an M3U or ASX playlist. Download the application to your phone and you can access your music anywhere, or stream your music on your net-aware device (such as a Nintendo Wii). Though the desktop apps for uploading your music are still a little glitchy, keep an eye on Mp3tunes’ development. Interestingly, this originally put Mp3.com out of business due to industry lawsuits.

None of these sites offer the perfect service, but cloud computing is still new. Whoever designs an easy to use site that enables you to upload your entire music library easily, offers access to any net-aware device, has money left for a sizeable marketing campaign, and is able to negotiate with the major record labels to avoid a lawsuit will be the next major web service to shape the internet.

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11 Comments »

  1. avatar nintendo wii remote not working | Digg hot tags Says:
    December 9th, 2008 at 9:53 pm

    [...] Vote Cloud Computing and Music [...]

  2. avatar tammy Says:
    December 9th, 2008 at 11:40 pm

    So have you ever wanted to try to make your facebook page unique? It’s pretty hard considering you can’t change colours of your background or text. I decided to do some research and see if I could add some cool pictures or something to make my profile stand out,than I came across a site http://www.hypster.com that let you make a free account and add music players to your facebook page! not only that but you can change the colours to! so not only will your new facebook profile be playing one of your favourite songs but it will be your favourite colour or colours! please take a look! And if you don’t have facebook, this site’s codes also work for myspace, bebo, piczo etc. take a look at http://www.hypster.com

    Free Myspace music

  3. avatar Jim Says:
    December 10th, 2008 at 1:48 am

    The future of music in the cloud is exciting. Throw an iPhone or Android phone into the mix and you’ll always have your music with you everywhere you go. Sweet!

  4. avatar Maisa Says:
    December 10th, 2008 at 5:25 am

    Agree with Jim! It is exciting and to give a bit more kudos to Cloud Computing: the whole concept of its benefits is!
    It’s been getting easier to store, share and interact content/data (and why not, create , giving the many available apps) and that it’s a benefit to all users!
    I personally like the “online desktop” model a lot, where, through a personal account you get to keep and create data in an only place, having the apps wrapped up in an easy environment. -check icloud, for example: http://icloud.com/maisa/

    Great Post! will post a link reference from my blog (http://icloudtoday.tumblr.com)

    Maisa.

  5. avatar Is Cloud Computing the Future of Music? | New Music Strategies Says:
    December 15th, 2008 at 5:59 am

    [...] received an email over the weekend asking my thoughts on this blog post, in which the author predicts that along with your operating system and your software, your music [...]

  6. avatar Universal Indie Records Says:
    December 15th, 2008 at 8:49 am

    While the article was a good read, I disagree. This article is a good counter balance to the one you’ve written…

    http://newmusicstrategies.com/2008/12/15/is-cloud-computing-the-future-of-music/comment-page-1/#comment-82260

  7. avatar Cloud Computing and Music Says:
    December 15th, 2008 at 9:28 am

    [...] READ THE FULL STORY [...]

  8. avatar Jon Says:
    December 17th, 2008 at 12:08 pm

    um…Cloud is another way to skin a cat, but will everyone, or even the majority of people choose to skin their cat’s this way, always and forever? I’d suspect though people may find new music via the cloud (almost exclusively), chances are network coverage will never completely make on-board memory redundant and that if you have on-board memory caching data, why would you choose to stream identical data again, or run the risk of things changing rendering you unable to find exactly what you’ve already found previously. I’m inclined to echo Andrew’s comments at New Music Strategies regarding technological determinism and music not being one-size-fits-all.

  9. avatar Hansjoerg Says:
    December 18th, 2008 at 11:46 am

    Apart from the idea that a download of all tracks isn’t necessary any more I belive could storage/computing adds really exciting possibilities to music again. It adds more social aspects to your music again even if you’re not at the same place at the same time, e.g. by recommendations, shared playlists and such stuff.

    That’s more or less the reason why we started the development of http://tunesBag.com, a full-featured online music hub which can be compared to mp3tunes.

    The “cloud” aspect is very much a technical one, I belive the typical user doesn’t care much about these buzzwords, either they like the service and use it or not. For providers like us it’s a great opportunity, however ;-)

    @Jim - you might be interested in our upcoming iPhone app … http://sites.google.com/a/tunesbag.com/beta/iphone-tunesBag-streaming-client

  10. avatar Digipendent » Blog Archive » Is Cloud Computing the Future of Music? Says:
    January 8th, 2009 at 11:49 pm

    [...] received an email from an industry associate earlier today asking my thoughts on this blog post, in which the author predicts that along with your operating system and your software, your music [...]

  11. avatar Is Cloud Computing the Future of Music? | Qmuso Says:
    January 20th, 2009 at 8:57 am

    [...] received an email over the weekend asking my thoughts on this blog post, in which the author predicts that along with your operating system and your software, your music [...]

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