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Is It That Bad?

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Wow, is the movie Jennifer’s Body starring Megan Fox that bad? Right now, the DVD version is a Lightning Deal on Amazon, going for 90% off! So you end up paying $1.99, and still the deal isn’t sold out yet. Must be real bad.

naked-famous

(Sorta) Failed First Google Music Purchase

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Now that Google Music is rocking, I figured I’d give its accompanying Android Market a run and buy a song. From the radio, I soundtracked Young Blood by The Naked and Famous on their album, Passive Me Aggressive You. As a quick test comparing Google, Amazon, and iTunes, I searched for “young blood passive me aggressive you” on the respective services.

Here’s what I got on Google Music. No match found.

Here’s what I got on Amazon’s MP3 Store. Entire album found with the single costing $0.99.

Here’s what I got on iTunes. Entire album found with the single costing $1.29.

What would you surmise seeing these results? I’d say Google Music fail, right? It’s the only music service that doesn’t offer this song. But… I changed my search terms on Google Music and looked for “naked famous”. And guess what shows up?

The single is actually there, hiding in plain sight. This is really strange, since Google being Google is synonymous with search. Why wasn’t this song found when searching for its title and the album name? Maybe the songs are still being indexed or something, I don’t know.

Once I found Young Blood, I easily completed the purchase and shared a listen on Google+. I downloaded the single via the web and imported into iTunes. Then I uploaded the song to my Amazon Cloud Drive.  Sadly though, this Google Music-purchased single won’t be available in iCloud without subscribing to iTunes Match.

Overall, a bit of a rough start with Google Music.  I’m pleased I eventually found the single but am confused why searches didn’t find it initially given Google’s searching strength.  Maybe the service is just being passive aggressive during launch?

Let Amazon.com Amaze You

The world’s largest store, Amazon.com, sells just about anything, and some of these things may amaze you. For instance, you know you need a nose shower gel dispenser in your bathroom. Yes, yes, you do!

Amazon Recommended?!?

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Ha, I don’t know what I bought to get these recommendations from Amazon. What an eclectic mix – a cigarette lighter, instant ramen, and um… a fishnet bodysuit?!

Giving Back with the Best of Arnold

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Since Wednesday was a good day for social media, it’s only right that I give back to the community. Like I mentioned, there’s no serious $$$ to be made here so prize selections are limited. What is a great epic-to-cost value is none other than the Best of Arnold Schwarzenegger, Vol 2. For the first 5 fans who leave a comment naming their favorite track from this epic collection, I’ll gift the entire Amazon MP3 album to you!

Not only will you get 20 Schwarzenegger classics that absolutely belong in your collection, but you could qualify for a free 20-GB Amazon Cloud Drive upgrade for one year. I haven’t verified you get the upgrade with a gifted album, but wouldn’t you want to find out?

Name your favorite Arnold tune and win!

How Can This Not Be in Your Music Collection?

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Seriously folks, how can this gem not be in your music collection? Everyone needs the Best of Arnold Schwarzenegger in their lives, and we’re talking Volume 2, not Volume 1.

This is a diverse and eclectic collection. You can romance to it with Wifeing, the Theme Of Love Conan The Barbarian and the Love Theme from Terminator. The holidays are represented in Christmas In Conneticut. When you need to engage your mind to solve a problem, queue up The Riddle Of Steel from Conan The Barbarian. Kids will have a kick with Kindergarten Cop Medley. And when you just want to let it out, go with the theme from Commando, Red Sonja, Red Heat, Predator, Total Recall, and Terminator II.

How much would a collection of this caliber cost you? $40? $30 for 20 tracks? No!! Only $2.39!!!! And if you buy now, you qualify for 20 GB of space on Amazon’s new Cloud Drive where this invaluable purchase will be stored for anytime, any place play back. This is winning! Do you see a double rainbow? Is your mind blown? This is epic.

Quick Thoughts About Amazon Cloud Player

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Amazon launched its cloud based music system yesterday, storing your multimedia files in your Cloud Drive and playing back audio with the Cloud Player. Kinda but not so surprisingly, Amazon beat out competitors like Apple, Google, and Spotify to a cloud based music locker to make your tunes portable.

What’s good? Amazon did a great job documenting and explaining their new Cloud service including step by step instructions. Every user automatically gets 5GB of storage for free and it’s easy to get more space. You can pay $1 per GB per year or simply buy an MP3 album from Amazon and get upgraded to 20GB for one year. And since Amazon has a bunch of deals on MP3 albums, it’s not hard to find something for $2-5 to get this one-year upgrade. Now what happens after your one year upgrade is over, I don’t know. Say I save 10 GB of music in my Cloud Drive and in one year, I revert back to a freebie 5-GB account, do I now have to pay? Amazon says no, but what then happens?

Back to the good. Any Amazon MP3 Store purchase doesn’t count against your Cloud Drive quota:

When you save your Amazon MP3 Store purchases directly to your Cloud Drive, they don’t take up any of your storage space and are always stored for free.

Uploads to Cloud Drive are speedy, and the MP3 Uploader app does a good drive scanning your computer for music files to upload, including unprotected iTunes purchases. I opted to upload a playlist of 147 songs which would take up 0.5 GB of space. The app estimates time remaining for uploads and provides good status feedback. Not too bad but…

Now for the bad. No playback for iOS devices like the iPhone and iPad. Android yes, Apple no. So far, I can’t easily tell how I upload individual songs using the MP3 Uploader app. By default, your music is grouped and displayed in playlists and by artists. I’d like another way to view my music so I can select which songs to upload. The Uploader app is tied your login status with Amazon. If something happens to that connection, the Uploader app stops working. My overnight upload stopped for some reason, and it looks like I had to log back in to Amazon’s web site before the Uploader started working again.

And my biggest peeve is the clunkiness. Yes, Cloud Drive and Cloud Player work, but it doesn’t feel as elegant as it could be. You have to install some software on your computer to playback and upload files. That’s understandable but gives a pieced-together sort of feel. Amazon’s implementation masks the different parts well, but you still get a sense of the different components working individually, not harmoniously.

So while Amazon is first to the cloud-based music locker, the battle is far from over. Apple definitely can penetrate this market with an elegant implementation leveraging the breadth of iTunes. Then coupled with AirPlay to share (not file share) your files locally, Apple could have a more compelling service. Still though, Amazon’s service is a great step forward for your music, photos, and videos. Where ever you’re connected, you can get to these files. This freedom is liberating.

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