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Cloud Music Entertainment

Best Buy Releases Their Own Music Cloud 187

Posted by Soulskill from the johnny-come-lately dept.
thewebblogger writes "In a move that more resembles 'me too' behavior rather than a well planned release, Best Buy has announced their own music cloud service, called simply Best Buy Music Cloud. The functionality is not complete yet; iOS / Android applications are not available at this point, and the only part that works is the Web Player. The premium version will cost $3.99/month and you'll have to upload your own music. iTunes is mandatory."
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Best Buy Releases Their Own Music Cloud More

Best Buy Releases Their Own Music Cloud

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  • But...I already have my own music (Score:2, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward

    What is the fucking point?

  • Best Buy + iTunes? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by DogDude ( 805747 ) on Tuesday June 21, 2011 @09:15PM (#36523070)
    Wow. That's like a shit sandwich. The worst retailer with the worst music software. Where do I sign up?

    • Re:Best Buy + iTunes? (Score:5, Funny)

      by Hatta ( 162192 ) on Tuesday June 21, 2011 @09:18PM (#36523092) Journal

      Same place you register to vote, I'd guess.

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by gmhowell ( 26755 )

        Same place you register to vote, I'd guess.

        But I don't want the shit sandwich that Best Buy is offering. I'd prefer a giant douche.

    • apart from not recognizing non-ipods (but a third-party utility adds MSC support), itunes is the best music software i've ever used. it absolutely kills rhythmbox, banshee and amarok, sad to say. i base this on not crashing; fast search/limiting and playlist creation; actually editing track information on the mp3 and not storing it in a parallel database in a ~/.directory (rhythmbox); and not requiring fucking SQL (amarok).

      • Media Monkey is so much better. Fuck iTunes.
        • Aye. MediaMonkey rocks. I just wish it was available for the Mac. It runs under Wine, but it's not very happy doing so.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by McNihil ( 612243 )

        Having gone from Rhythmbox to iTunes earlier this year I can wholeheartedly say that iTunes sucks donkey rocks in comparison. For instance, Where the hell is a simple play queue? Nothing more severe than ad-hoc play queue... no temporary playlists please. There are more small grating and annoying things... oh yeah not being able to fully read the id3 tags and it ends up selecting the one that is botched and not the full and correct one like Rhythmbox.

        Sure I am speaking from a POV where I most likely will no

        • everything stores data somehow. i just think mySQL is a heavy dependency for a freaking music player.

          it looks like our desiderata in music players are orthogonal, fair enough. if you haven't tried it, though, i suggest banshee. it seemed to me to be rhythmbox "done right".

        • >For instance, Where the hell is a simple play queue? Nothing more severe than ad-hoc play queue... no temporary playlists please.

          My gods, try using the software for more than five minutes before criticizing it. It's under iTunes DJ.

          I haven't run into the other issues you had, but simply HAD to advise you on this one because it's so obvious you didn't poke around the software very much!

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by Hatta ( 162192 )

            You shouldn't have to poke around to find your play queue. It should be the first thing you see.

            • You shouldn't have to poke around to find your play queue. It should be the first thing you see.

              So instead of seeing all your music, by default you should see nothing?

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by McNihil ( 612243 )

            When I first looked at iTunesDJ it contained a lot of stuff that I explicitly didn't want and had no time to investigate... remote stuff and all that. Now that I have looked deeper per your advice and turned off basically ALL functionality it works almost as the Rhythmbox queue (it doesn't continue previous playlist when DJ is finished) ... however this functionality shouldn't have been this convoluted to get to... sure I need only do this once so its not a biggie. Ok so rather than sucking donkey rocks iTu

      • Does the use of SQL(by default, transparently handled by a built-in SQLite implementation, optionally usable against a separate SQL backend for higher performance or multiple-computer-access setups) really bother you that much? More to the point, how is that different from iTunes' metadata [apple.com] storage, except for the whole "being comparatively standard" and "being optionally compatible with more powerful backend databases" stuff?

        • in my experience, it pulled in mySQL as a dependency. this link seems to suggest that they took out the built-in SQLite (which would have been fine by me): http://amarok.kde.org/blog/archives/812-MySQL-in-Amarok-2-The-Reality.html [kde.org]

          i can see how amarok's power could be useful if you have audio on network shares or something. i don't and amarok was slow, buggy and ugly to me. i chalked this up to mySQL, maybe i was wrong.

          • Interesting. My experience was with the KDE3-era original, which just silently used SQLite for metadata, unless you dug into the "you really don't need to touch this; but I know that you guys are into that kind of thing" menu. Apparently they've dropped that and gone with an embedded MySQL instance of some sort since then...

            Frankly, while a lot of KDE4 is architecturally pretty cool, the first few 4.Xs, and the associated applications, were not improvements compared to the mature(if sometimes 'mature as

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by Hatta ( 162192 )

            Amarok 2, that's your problem. Amarok has been a steaming pile since 1.4.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by tlhIngan ( 30335 )

          I like iTunes as well, and yes, it runs like a dog on Windows (but really quite nicely on OS X. Probably because Windows doesn't really like having to host a mini-version of OS X for all the Apple stuff which just bloats everything up).

          The irony is the OP likes iTunes, yet objects to SQL. iTunes library files are .itl files which are SQLite databases. iTunes maintains XML files for both backup and compatibility purposes (if the ITL file is missing, iTunes will rebuild from the XML, but otherwise the XML is

      • but I'll say this: Zune is iTunes without the bloat. The hardware might be a joke (Brown? Sign me Up!) but the software is fast, stable as a rock, and doesn't get between me and my music. I really can't explain it. It's just a pity Microsoft flubbed the hardware so bad.

        • Does the Zune support iPods?

          I'm not being facetious. I used to use GtkPod on Linux but now that I'm using Windows 7[0], I'm pretty desperate for something that doesn't suck.

          [0] Yeah, yeah, I know. But now that all the DEs seem to be adopting Apple's design strategy of getting in the user's way as often and as irritatingly as possible, windows is actually easier to get work done in. How messed up is THAT?

        • i like earth tones in general and i really dig the brown! however i won't buy an mp3 player that doesn't mount as usb storage (as i understand the zune and latest ipods don't?), and i don't carry much music. i'm using an 8gb sansa fuze & it works great.

        • Comment removed based on user account deletion

      • Yea, itunes is OK... when its not locking up and crashing and generally acting like playing music is a difficult task.

      • If you are using iTunes on anything other than OS-X, it sucks. First off, it is slower than crap, the store barely works (why does it take longer to "process" a media file than it does to download it online) and is generally a pain to work with.

        On Windows FooBar2000 kicks the crap out of iTunes. On Linux, both rhythmbox and amarok work just fine for me and VLC is king for playing single files.

      • Then why in bloody hell can't I drag and drop music from iTunes to my iPhone? I though apple was all about drag and drop.

      • Comment removed based on user account deletion

        • Plus it automatically restricts how many PCs you can install it on.

          Wrong. There's a restriction of 5 PC's you can play your iTunes-bought DRM'ed media on, mostly a moot point these days since DRM was dropped from music on iTunes in 2009.

        • i used banshee and rhythmbox for years. banshee was pretty good. it's definitely what i would pick if i were on linux again.

      • Comment removed based on user account deletion

      • Umpf. The best music software is MPD + ncmpcpp. It supports everything you said, it has support for multiple audio outputs (including network streaming) that you can toggle with a couple of keypresses and it's easily scriptable.

      • itunes is the best music software i've ever used.

        Even if you'd only ever used itunes music software, this couldn't be true.

    • Best Buy Releases Their Own Music Cloud

      I thought something smelled funny.

    • I don't know how the hell you got modded insightful. I've never had any issue with Best Buy and I never had any problem with iTunes either at home on Snow Leopard or on Windows 7 at work. Maybe you have a shitty PC with not enough RAM and too much bloatware running in the background.

      Do you obsessively look at how much ram a program uses? I judge programs based on more than one criteria and as long as the software is responsive then it is not using too many resources.

      • too much bloatware running in the background.

        Like iTunes?

        My mother uses iTunes (on Windows 7) because of her iPod, and it regularly blocks the UI while converting and transferring files, it's pathetic. And no, it wasn't swapping.

        For Windows, Foobar2000 is the only decent music player I've used.

        • too much bloatware running in the background.

          Like iTunes?

          My mother uses iTunes (on Windows 7) because of her iPod, and it regularly blocks the UI while converting and transferring files, it's pathetic. And no, it wasn't swapping.

          For Windows, Foobar2000 is the only decent music player I've used.

          iTunes might take more ram than your favourite program Foobar2000 but then again iTunes is a cross platform application so it has to load some additional libraries on windows to compensate whereas Foobar2000 (what kind of idiotic nerd name is that?) is a windows only native application that probably does a lot less.

          Firefox is also a cross platform application and it seems to take up more memory on every platform it runs on that what one would expect but that probably again has to do with the cross platform

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by Andy Dodd ( 701 )

            "but then again iTunes is a cross platform application"

            Not an excuse. A properly designed application can be cross-platform and still perform well.

            Firefox, GIMP, and Pidgin are my favorite three examples.

  • It's not even worth writing a long essay about. Oooooh, it's 'the cloud', by which they mean it's just a client/server model like most of the internet already resembles. Sheesh.

    -Matt

  • All the cool kids are doing it now?

  • Business strategy (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Albanach ( 527650 ) on Tuesday June 21, 2011 @09:39PM (#36523256) Homepage

    This sounds a lot like a way to add on a $3.99 recurring charge to new PC sales for Best Buy. I'd expect to see them pushing this heavily in store with new computer sales, and a lot of folk buying it then never using it. Allow cancelling only by telephone and only after waiting 20 minutes in a phone queue and that should keep their retention rate nice and high.

  • just askin'. I don't see how this'll work. Plus I'm bitter. I really, really miss MP3.com :(.

    • Not exactly.

      The BestBuy/Google model is to upload all your music. No different than if you copied the mp3 files to a drop box account or an external hard drive (though the RIAA may see it differently).

      The MP3.com model is to gracenote your CD and unlock access to their rip of it.

      The iTunes Match model is similar to the MP3.com model but you can upload songs they don't have and (more importantly) THE RECORD COMPANIES ALL AGREED TO IT BEFOREHAND.

      There's also the amazon model which is to similar to t

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by mlts ( 1038732 ) *

        It really boils down to who had the deeper pockets. mp3.com was just a spot on the RIAA's shoe, while Google, Amazon, or Apple would actually give them a run for their money.

        I wish mp3.com didn't go with the locker service... it was a great site for finding new bands... and there isn't really much in that department nowadays, other than last.fm and Pandora. It would be nice to have a site with a decent metal selection that doesn't have the same warmed over top 100 artists, and proper sub-genres.

        • when they nuked mp3.com i couldn't believe it. all that work, erased, for no reason.

          i have found some really great stuff on last.fm though.

          • there was a great reason. MP3.com was getting people to listen to music they liked, instead of top 40 crap. It was splintering the music market by connecting artists directly with their fans. One of the first things the record labels did when they got the domain was shut down anyone that was making a good living without a record contract. There were several bands that got taken off the site with no notice or reason. In the end, it's all about control of our pop culture. The grandparent said it best: "he sam

  • Dead on Arrival! (Score:4, Interesting)

    by bogaboga ( 793279 ) on Tuesday June 21, 2011 @09:54PM (#36523338)

    I have an ill feeling that Best Buy's service will be dead on arrival. They made its death even more certain buy requiring iTunes.

    This poses the question, 'Why should one abandon Apple/iTunes/iCloud for this seemingly [half baked] product?'

    • Re:Dead on Arrival! (Score:4, Insightful)

      by c0lo ( 1497653 ) on Tuesday June 21, 2011 @11:37PM (#36523944)
      Zombie on arrival. It will be included in the crapware installed on every computer the "innocent" people buy from them and the opt-out will be painful.
    • Comment removed based on user account deletion

      • Why would one use iTunes in the first place when CDs are cheaper, less lossy and provide automatic backups of themselves once you rip them.

        Because CDs aren't cheaper? And one can buy individual tracks from an album without having to buy the whole thing? Because in most cases no one is going to hear the difference between the CD and the high bitrate tracks from iTunes (as backed up by vast amounts of ABX testing)? Because most CDs aren't mastered that great anymore so the benefits of CDs have mostly been mooted from the start?

  • This is basically $3.99/month to merely host your music away from your home, but with weird terms like mandatory iTunes.

    What the hell is the point? They were definitely right when they suggested it's more of a "me too" service than something properly thought out.

  • the weird mandatory iTunes requirement makes me wonder if this is something Apple is offering to retailers as a service. It seems strange that Best Buy would even want to take on the infrastructure side of this themselves, from scratch. I wonder just how much of that $3.99 a month goes to Apple? The benefit to Apple would be obvious, a major retailer pushing iTunes to customers. I suppose Best Buy gets to have a trendy feature to sell to people that don't know they don't need the Geek Squad to pimp thei

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by dzfoo ( 772245 )

      Wow! I almost made it to the end. I thought I was safe, the scroll-bar was almost touching the bottom border of the window. Just a few more posts to go, not a chance now... and then... someone had to spin an article on a lame new product from Best Buy as an Apple conspiracy. Great.

      Thanks for the jolt back into reality. For a moment I had forgotten I was in Slashdot.

              -dZ.

      • not sure why you see offering a service through a 3d party as a conspiracy. Companies do this all the time to reach people that they might not otherwise reach. I wouldn't have even suggested it except for the strange requirement of iTunes. It just doesn't make sense that Best Buy would expect to get away with launching a direct competitor to a new Apple service AND use Apples software.

        Unfortunately I stopped reading at the graphic and didn't see the how it works section. Looks like it's just reading

    • Interesting theory, and it makes some sense given the timing and pricing. If BBY pays AAPL per subscriber with minimal upfront costs then it's almost no risk.

  • Looks like the MobileMe logo went up for auction and Best Buy won it. I wonder if Apple cares enough to bother sending out a lawyer or two.
  • Maybe I'm just behind the times, but I honestly don't understand the point of these "cloud services" for things such as music. I have a Dropbox account, but I use that for tossing files to friends without the hassle of running an Apache daemon, setting up an FTP, or choking an email server with large attachments. I don't understand the need to have my entire collection available across every device I might possibly want to use.

    But that brings up another issue. If this is anything like iCloud, there's goi
  • Music cloud service that requires iTunes. Gee, so does iCloud, and it doesn't cost you a damned cent, and even if you get the iTunes match service, it's STILL cheaper than this! You could say that Android users would go for it, but there are already better services there, too, and what goddamned Android user is actually using iTunes?

  • When Apple came knocking on doors peddling their ITMS music store, they learned something the hard way - every country needed to be dealt with individually, with every distributor from each country having their own agreement to sign. Result - ITMS is still not available here (Singapore). By having the user upload their own music, it could be a sign of frustration at dealing with the music distribution channels and attempting to bypass them altogether.

  • I hope they offer some sort of product replacement plan, so that if anything happens to my mp3 they'll give me the latest model of the bits as a replacement. That would really set them apart from Apple.

  • There IS an android client (Score:3, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 21, 2011 @11:20PM (#36523840)

    If the submitter would have gone to the site hosted by best buy they would have seen that there is already an android client. This can be confirmed by searching for it in the android market. I know people here love to hate on best buy but seriously get your facts straight.

  • Sorry for stating the obvious here... (Score:4, Funny)

    by sootman ( 158191 ) on Tuesday June 21, 2011 @11:35PM (#36523938) Homepage Journal

    ... but it requires iTunes (same as iCloud) AND it's slower (you've got to upload all your music) AND it costs about twice as much ($47.88/year vs. $25) AND it comes from a (I'll be kind here) not especially well-regarded company, as opposed to one that scores very highly in just about every customer satisfaction rating there is?

    what
    the
    holy
    fuck?

    Seriously, I can't say anything else but "what are they thinking?!?" This is obviously nothing more than a blind money grab and I can't see it possibly working out for them. Or lasting very long. In the meantime, I'd recommend not buying any computers at Best Buy--I think they'll wire a car battery to your nuts with alligator clamps until you sign up for this.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by icebike ( 68054 )

      ... but it requires iTunes (same as iCloud) AND it's slower (you've got to upload all your music) AND it costs about twice as much ($47.88/year vs. $25) AND it comes from a (I'll be kind here) not especially well-regarded company, as opposed to one that scores very highly in just about every customer satisfaction rating there is?

      Ah, but on the other side of the coin,...

      If Apple, and Amazon, and Google, and Best Buy and who-ever-is-next can set up music cloud services it says the death grip
      of the music industry is essentially broken. The cat is out of the bag and they will never re-establish the level of control they
      once had.

      Uploading isn't all that bad with Amazon or Google. Chews up bandwidth, but its Step One. Step Two will follow
      soon. Then they will just SAMPLE your music files like Shazam, and make a database entry on their

  • Why are you trying all of these solutions for the simple task of syncing your music?

    rsync, and a little sed/awk to modify the playlists per device. Done. For consistent tagging and encoding, I use LAME. I'm still not into paying money for compressed music that likely isn't tagged or encoded the way I want to begin with.

  • Last I checked, Best Buy owned Napster, which, for $5 a month, let you stream whatever you wanted without having to upload anything AND purchase MP3 tracks AND has an iOS/Android app AND is completely independent of iTunes AND a halfway decent browser-based portal AND a thick client for people like me who still prefer it and/or use mobile devices it can sync with ("Janus", aka "PlaysForSure" devices along with generic mass storage devices, keeping in mind that Creative had some pretty slick media players ba

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