Google Formally Announces Launch of Music Beta, Register to Receive Invite

OK, as we mentioned last night, Google was planning to announce the launch of a cloud-based music hosting service, similar to what is already available from Amazon.com (launched at the end of February).

Now, it’s official. Hello to Google Music Beta.

However, before you begin organizing your files for upload, you’ll need to receive an invite. Of course, as you might expect, you’ll need a Google email address to register to receive one. While you’re waiting  for it to arrive you might want to spend some time with Amazon’s Cloud Drive and Cloud Player.

Head to this page, click, and begin watching your inbox for an invite.

Fast Facts:

+ At Launch, Google Music Beta is Available for Android Devices and On the Web

+ Google Music Beta is U.S. ONLY at this point. We would expect the service becoming close to global over time.

+ Create Custom Playlists.

+ Offline Capabilities: Recent Songs Played Will Be Available Offline and/or Select Playlists/Songs/Artists Can Also Be Selected from Your Library

+ Wireless Syncing

+ Update All Music Including Material from iTunes

Notes:

1. Amazon’s Cloud Drive offers 5GB of storage for free. However, if you purchase any MP3 album you get 20GB of storage for one year. How much storage will Google be providing for free? Fees for more storage?

2. Is Google rolling the service out globally?

2. Will Google Music Beta store non-music files? Amazon Cloud Drive allows users to store a number of file types for photos, videos, documents, etc.

3. If you use the Android app for Amazon Cloud, you can easily (but not automatically, at least not yet) download music for offline access. This should also work with iOS devices.

4. Amazon.com also allows users to purchase music direct from Amazon (-; and users can choose to have purchases sent directly to their Cloud Drive. The storage space required to store the purchased music doesn’t count against your quota. Purchasing music and then listening using the Cloud Player can be accomplished very easily. and quickly. We purchased and download several songs and was able to begin listening to them in less than one minute.

Filed under: Libraries, Patrons and Users