For years, Amazon has been stuck behind Apple's iTunes, and has been searching for ways to make the world's next great music "thing." Finally, it seems as if they have, by creating Amazon Cloud, a new service for computers and Android that allows you to "buy anywhere, play anywhere and keep all your music in one place." However, what makes this service different from iTunes, is that you can also store other computer files to the Cloud Drive, which allows you to back up any file on your computer with one click of a button. These files are also accessible from any computer in the world. Unfortunately, companies such as Dropbox, who were the first to start this online backup service, are put in a position where they must alter their technology or face losing their business. In the last 24 hours alone more users have subscribed to Amazon Cloud than Dropbox had after three years of service Additionally, Amazon's stock rose by nearly 5.50 points today, the day's largest jump for any NYSE listed company.
What Amazon says makes their product unique, and a step above Apple's is that if you have a computer crashes your entire iTunes library is gone, whereas The Cloud is literally in the sky and accessible from any computer in the world. Another really great feature about The Cloud, is that for Android owners, you do not have to plug in your device to upload your new music. As soon as you purchase a new song, it automatically uploads onto your phone without the wires. And oh yeah, I forgot to mention, for you Android users out there your first 5 GB of memory are free, which translates to over 1,200 songs! Another great plus about Amazon's service, is instead of users needing to buy songs (that is once you have used up your first 1,200) they are most likely still going to be free. Amazon is working out the last chinks of this deal, but they are working with record companies, to set annual fees to provide its entire music library for free. The reason Amazon says they will be able to do this, is that the money they generate from selling additional Gigabytes of memory will more than make up for their costs to the record companies. Before I wrap this post up I will leave you with one last thought: news surfaced this week that Apple is working on their own "Music Locker" to keep up with Amazon's Cloud. Oh what an interesting technology race this may turn out to be!
Citation: http://cdn.pocket-lint.com/images/zYQG/amazon-cloud-drive-streams-in-0.jpg?20110329-092624
Tyler,
ReplyDeleteAlthough this is a pretty awesome invention, what if someone doesn't have a Android? It seems that Amazon is limiting their customer demographic. More people have Blackberries and IPhones than Androids so it seems that Amazon would make a lot more money if they made The Cloud accessible to other smart phone users. Also, I feel that if Apple offered a similar service of backing up their music automatically then nothing about The Cloud Drive is going to be more appealing, unless they are able to get the service that allows them to get music free after 1200 songs.