Amazon unveils music streaming service
Amazon is to make its first foray into music streaming with the launch of cloud-based music services for web and Android mobile devices.
Amazon Cloud Drive and Cloud Player for Web and Android let users store music then stream it to any Android phone, tablet, PC or Mac device.
Customers can automatically save up to 5Gb of their music library to the Cloud Drive storage; those who purchase an Amazon MP3 album will be upgraded to 20Gb of space.
Amazon MP3 purchases will also be saved directly to the Amazon Cloud Drive service but won’t count against the storage quota.
Bill Carr, Amazon’s VP of movies and music, says: “Our customers have told us they don’t want to download music to their work computers or phones because they find it hard to move music around to different devices.”
Amazon is the latest brand to look to cloud-based music services to develop its business. Last month, Motorola acquired a stake in cloud media service Catch Media in its latest move to reposition itself as a cloud-stored music and video provider.
Music streaming service We7, independent production firm Somethin’ Else, the IAB, BT and Yahoo have kicked off a 12-month research project to collectively investigate the potential of cloud radio.
As computing becomes increasingly cloud-based, it makes the process of storing and downloading music redundant, while the next generation of music players, mobile phones and home entertainment systems point to music streaming.
The launch of Amazon’s cloud-based music service comes ahead of a heavily tipped launch from Apple, following its purchase of Lala, which it closed in May last year.
Google is understood to be mooting a similar launch to stake a claim in the market.
This story first appeared on newmediaage.co.uk
