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Best Buy Releases Their Own Music Cloud
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."
What is the fucking point?
Wow. That's like a shit sandwich. The worst retailer with the worst music software. Where do I sign up?
I don't respond to AC's.
.."remember the old days when we listened to music straight from CDs or harddrive/flashdrive mp3 players?"
I really don't see the attraction of cloud stored music because it means you have to have an internet capable device to listen to the music on - bloody pointless when you're cycling or driving, sure you could have a GPRS type internet device but that means wireless reception and monthly cellphone plan payments. Fuck that, my mp3 player doesn't need wifi or montly payments, it just WORKS.
I think I'll call it GeekMP3Squad.com
that's fuckin' useless. wow...
I too have set up a cloud music service, except mine is 100% free. For the first step, please upload your songs to my server. This is going to save me so much time looking for songs with bittorrent!
Think about it: Physical media (hard drives/flash) is cheap, consumers have been using it for years, data on phones is getting shittier, caps are becoming more common, and the internet and electricity never go out. WE SHOULD CHARGE PEOPLE TO HOLD ON TO THEIR MUSIC!
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?
Palm trees and 8
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.
4 bucks a month to listen to music I ALREADY PAID FOR.
but then... what do you expect from best buy... best buy sucks
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.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
just askin'. I don't see how this'll work. Plus I'm bitter. I really, really miss MP3.com :(.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
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?'
Best Buy aint no Amazon... let the death countdown begin.
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 their online deals.
just what we need more up sells from the geeks and blue shirts.
Best Buy Releases Their Own Music Cloud
I thought something smelled funny.
Best Buy frequently releases clouds, but the smell doesn't remind me of music.
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.
Meh. If you need an external hard drive and an automatic backup, I'm going to sell you the hard drive, and I'm going to charge you for setting it up, as it takes time out of my day.
Don't like it? Learn how to set it up yourself, or have a geeky friend.
I'm tired of this shit. If you don't know how to rotate your tires, you pay for someone to do it. If you don't know how to set up AV software, you pay for someone to do it.
I think it's called fog when it sinks.
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 going to be a 5gb or so limit. I don't have a huge amount of music, but it far outstrips that paltry offering. But in reality I don't WANT all my music with me at any given time. My MP3 player is used for running. It's a 4gb model, and every song I could possibly want while working out is already on there. I don't need to synch more. My phone has 12gb of memory built-in, and I stuck a 16gb MicroSDHC card in there as well. Even with tons of apps and videos, there's still enough space for the vast majority of my music collection if I wanted to take it with me.
So what, again, is the point of synching to some cloud under someone else's control, when I can just plug a USB cable in for a few seconds if there's a song I REALLY need to put on either device? And that's saying nothing about how Best Buy will probably butcher it into uselessness just like everything else they've gotten their hands on...
"So after all this, you make my case for me. To end this stalemate, you must die..."
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?
This is stupid!
Now that Verizon is stopping unlimited data, why would you be so stupid to blast through your limit by storing your music in the cloud? My Droid X has a 16GB sdcard, unless I go crazy that's plenty of room for my music, and if it wasn't I can upgrade to 32GB.
The cloud is dead for music, why are companies too slow to understand this?
are you retarded or an astroturfer?
a 99$ external hd is usb 2.0. what is so hard about setting that up? it usually loads software that does very easy backup. don't act like you have some tech skills here. you are so not needed for anything it's a wonder that you even posted this. you smug little shit, a large portion of people here can write their OWN backup software if they wanted to. something that is very unlikely you can do if you think backing up to an external drive with preloaded--IDIOT PROOF software is somehow a service you are providing. so please keep the time of your day, and yourself to yourself.
then you jump from hard drives to cars--yes rotating tires is easy, and do not even mention av setup, since there are several kinds of this, your big box store doesnt have a clue they exist
I think the above poster was not showing displeasure at having to install things themselves, but actually talking about disliking assholes like you. I bet your tune is MUCH different at your shitty bestbuy job, where you do everything you can to charge for unneeded labor. notice he said UP SELLS you fucking moron
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.
Starbucks, Harbuckle of Breath.
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.
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.
Step 1) make a cloud service Step 2) ....
Step 3) Profit!!
Warning: Teh poster of this messaeg is lysdexic
phrases like shit sandwich don"t even begin to describe this.
the only good thing from this whole mess is the surprisingly good writeup on the bbuymobile site. how dude managed to pull this off, I'm not sure, but kudos.
guess itunes is well known here. lockdown can be avoided with ephod etc, if you even have an ipod.
but the real stinker? you have to upload your own music, and the free service only lets you listen to 30 seconds of it, until you pay them.
this really begs the question, who in their right fucking mind would ever go for this? and how is it even called competitive with apple et al when it uses itunesTM? apple could easily sue them into next week. this seems more likely to happen sooner than later, since apple has also announced their own cloud fantasy. at least they use md5 hashes, and people were saying epic fail if you have to upload your tunes to it. now BB has actually done it. humiliation.
this past week has been total shit in /. tech news. it's official: americans (getting over being hooked on coke, crack, heroin, wars and phonics buzzwords) are now totally nuts. it's anon/lulzec riding on a cloud raining bitcoins down on everyone.
in a way it is a fitting buzzword, but it will not take long for the sun to slice through this vaporware, and once the fog has lifted we will people waxing smart about how the cloud was doomed to fail. not since the cookie have the biggest dipshits out there been able to wave their hands and sound smart when talking about something--dont ya know, it's like a cloud man...
what is the real question is the repetitive, crappy news that seems like advertising; does /. now sell ad as article/news by the week? it's the same old apple/MS, bestbuy sucks, kurzweil is a prohpet bullshit for years now.
whats next? a social media slashcloud?
... 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.
Dear Slashdot: next time you want to mess with the site, add a rich-text editor for comments.
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.
if you ran a tire-rotation place like best buy runs its computer desk, youd be thrown in prison for fraud.
they tell you 'bring it in for any reason', they upsell a warranty, and a bunch of shitty antivirus.
then what do they do when you get viruses? they charge you another 150 bucks.
if someone sold you tires with an extended warranty and they said 'here, here is a thing to make your tires puncture proof' for another upsell, and then you got a flat on your way home, and you went back and they made you buy all new tires.. yeah.
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 same warmed over top 100 artists".
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
that I will see as useless and will find it amazing at the number of times I see this software installed.
WTF is a music cloud ?
Say what you will about Apple--but they don't tolerate third party bloatware on Macs
Geek Cloud..
This looks like a pr vendor mockup. At least I hope it is. This entire concept is monumentally retarded. No mention on bby.com, no links back etc, funky domain blah blah blah.
"Now, there are no real MP3 players... there are the "portable media players", but if I want to watch video on my MP3 player..."
What's wrong with buying a "portable media player" and only using it for music?
dragonhawk@iname.microsoft.com
I do not like Microsoft. Remove them from my email address.
Do I get a free Monster cable with that?
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 back in 2007).
Forget "me too" behavior, this is "reinventing the wheel because the left hand is completely unaware of the existence of the right hand" behavior.
Bestbuy owns Napster. Why are they forcing you to use a rival's software? Wouldn't it make more since to integrate this with their own product? I work at BestBuy and every week I find myself facepalming over their new bright ideas... like Buy Back. Maybe I should update my resume for when they finally run themselves into the ground.
Fair enough. Thanks for the reply.
dragonhawk@iname.microsoft.com
I do not like Microsoft. Remove them from my email address.
of too much wealth in the hands of too few.