TechDish: A Music Player in the Cloud

Posted on: Fri, 04/22/2011 - 09:03 — us104_techdish

Hey gang, today on TechDish we're talking about music in the cloud and a great new service provided through Amazon that allows you to access, and play your music from virtually anywhere. As a music fan, this is the kind of stuff that really gets me excited—seeing improvements like this is exactly the kind of thing that allows us to "unplug", and yet still be plugged in, while away from the computer.

What is this "the cloud"?

"The cloud" is essentially any off-site network that facilitates the storage of data—documents, files, photos, music, videos…anything you normally store on your computer can be stored on a cloud server. The exciting thing is that many cloud-based services are not only just a backup medium anymore; the good ones have built-in viewing and editing capabilities as well! What's this mean? Let's say you've got a Microsoft Word document started but not enough time to finish before you head to Grandma's for Easter. Save it to the cloud, and when you get to grandma's house you can resume editing the document—without needing YOUR computer, and, with many services that support this, without needing to have Microsoft Word installed on the computer!

This is also great for team collaboration too—share that same document with your coworkers, and everyone can access it and put in their contributions as well. Slick!

Music in the cloud

We talked a few weeks ago about using cloud storage as a backup for your music library, protecting it from unfortunate loss on the part of your home PC, laptop, iPod, etc. While most any cloud service will allow you to upload your music collection for backup purposes, none of the big ones to date allow you to stream that music from any location (at least not without the help of third party plugins).

Enter Amazon Cloud Player, a service that allows you to play your music from anywhere! No more downloading songs or installing a music player on your buddy's computer, your tunes are now streamed directly from the web!

How to stream music with Amazon's Cloud Player

It's really not as scary as it sounds! Anyone with an Amazon account has the ability to sign up for a complimentary (or, FREE) 5GB of storage (think: ~1,000 songs). Don't have an Amazon account? Sign up in less than a minute, without needing to make a purchase.

Upload your music from your personal library to Amazon Cloud Drive. Or, buy music at Amazon and save it to Cloud Drive. Either way is easy! Something to note: ANY music purchase from Amazon's MP3 Store does not count against your storage quota. Need more incentive? Buy an album from Amazon and you'll automatically be upgraded to 20GB of storage (think: ~4,000 songs)! More details about this offer.

Here's the sweetest part of the deal. ANY music, purchased or otherwise, that you have stored in your Amazon Cloud Drive can be accessed and played, FROM ANYWHERE! Just think: no more last minute cd burning or iPod syncing for road trips, plug your phone's headphone jack into your car and stream your library like you never left home! Need to DJ a party? Don't bother setting up all kinds of storage and playlists on a laptop that might die; build your playlist online, free from worry of brutal destruction! And all you who need background music to serenade that special "someone" in your life—your phone is a LOT lighter to heft over your head than that boombox that John Cusak used ever was.