Google Music Beta Now Live

[allen]

. . . of course, you have to get your hands on an invidation to see.  Sign up here

[eleman]

Yet another incursion by Google. To spotify and/or iTunes realm this time, it seems.

Let's see if it will be another youtube, or another dead google fad, just like googletalk, orkut, wave, google video, and many others.

[nosh]

****US only!****
Very well then, I'll just use "other means"... 

[allen]

Incursion if you despite google and feel it's wrong for them to do... well, anything.    Does iTunes offer cloud access to your music these days? I haven't used spotify, but run a subsonic server.  I'm curious to compare it to Amazon's recent cloud drive / cloud player (Which I generally like, but can't really justify paying what I'd have to to host ALL my music).

[app103]

The description that Google is offering on this new service sounds a lot like what LaLa was. (If Apple wanted to offer something like this, maybe they shouldn't have killed LaLa after they bought it.)

I am curious to see where Google plans on taking this and whether or not they plan on integrating social networking into it like LaLa did, and syncing with last.fm.

[Deozaan]

Yeah, it sounds a lot like LaLa.

I requested an invitation. We'll see how it goes.

Let's see if it will be another youtube, or another dead google fad, just like googletalk

GoogleTalk is the only IM client I use. I like it that much. Though I do admit it's a shame the client doesn't have all the features as Gmail Chat. But I like its minimalism. I like that it doesn't take over my computer with toolbars and emoticons and all that extra crap. But video chat and group chat would be nice.

[Renegade]

It would be nice if the hardware world could keep up with the software world...

I can't see keeping media in the cloud as being remotely desirable from here. Limited bandwidth... I miss fiber...

[Deozaan]

It would be nice if the hardware world could keep up with the software world...

I can't see keeping media in the cloud as being remotely desirable from here. Limited bandwidth... I miss fiber...

Maybe that's why it's US only. I don't know the statistics, but I bet the broadband-available market is pretty large in the USA.

[Renegade]

Dial-up has been relegated to backup service for transferring connections, and broadband is pretty much ubiquitous. It's the quality of "broadband" that varies, and it varies very widely. In some places, you're screaming fast if you get over 128k, while in others, 128M is soon to be relegated to the slow lane. Billing options in different jurisdictions/places also affect the practicality of the service.

I wish more US companies would off-shore their legal departments and figure out how to get around restrictions. It would make a lot more things viable for a lot more people. Sigh...

[Jibz]

Google Music is open to the public now, I wrote a quick review with my first impressions here .