Slashdot Mirror
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."
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.
There are various good arguments for "cloud storage", but this service exemplifies none of them.
Yes but for only $3.99 a month they could own your music!
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.
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?'
"Client/server" is some 70's academic hippie crap. We prefer to think of it as the "Consumer/Premium Content Provider" model. In the near future, we have high hopes for the "Serf/Lord" model. -RIAA
Bingo. A few years back, we had some decent choices for a MP3 player with a decent capacity, from the Zune, to many others. Drivers? Plug it in, it mounts as a USB flash drive, copy files, unmount, and call it done.
Now, there are no real MP3 players with any capacity beyond like 6 gig, and the only MP3 player with 100+ gigs of capacity is the iPod Classic.
Of course, like described above, there are the "portable media players", but if I want to watch video on my MP3 player, I would buy a Galaxy Tab, iPad, or an iPod Touch. There is a market niche for this type of device -- just audio and a high capacity HDD. I just hope Apple doesn't can their iPod Classic anytime soon.
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.
... 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.
Right, and in a day where flash memory is dirt cheap, accessing the web on a device is getting harder and harder to do (no more cell phone unlimited data, fewer unsecured wi-fi hotspots) and you can get streaming music for free (Pandora, Last.Fm, YouTube, Shoutcast, etc.), why does it make sense for you to pay $4 to access your own music?
Perhaps 5 years ago "the cloud" might have made sense back when 2 GB SD cards were still $50-60, unsecured Wi-Fi was incredibly common and data plans were unlimited, but today with dirt cheap flash media prices with enough storage to hold lots of songs it really makes no sense.
Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.