1 year, 10 months ago
What do you think of my perfect music service idea? It is described at http://bit.ly/the_perfect_music_service
original blog post at http://bit.ly/the_perfect_music_service
The perfect music streaming service does not exist. I can, however, create a perfect system from pieces of the existing streaming services. What is the perfect streaming music service? It is a place where you can upload all your music and the site will allow you to stream from any computer or music player device. In addition, the site will throw in new music based on your collection. These features exist, but not as part of one streaming service.
As a digital music collector, it is very important to keep a copy of my collection backed up offsite. I can use a backup service such as Carbonite, but this solution will not allow me to stream my collection. If Carbonite adds this feature, I would signup in a minute. There is no reason for Carbonite to stop with music files. This backup company can offer similar hosting services for peoples backed-up video files, picture files, and text files.
A service that allows me to backup my music collection and stream from any browser or from a wide selection of mobile units is mp3tunes. The same person that brought us mp3.com is now in charge of mp3tunes.com, Michael Robertson. mp3tunes gets really close to the perfect streaming service. Michael Roberton’s company falls short in price, storage limitation, and music discovery. The price for mp3tunes ranges from $39.95/year for 50GB to $139.95/year for 200GB. Music aficionados, like myself, will easily surpass the amount of storage that this site can provide. I own close to 300GB of mp3 tunes. This solution will not be all-inclusive to my collection, even at the highest price point. Let’s put the storage limit aside, the price can seem very deep when compared to Carbonite’s $54.95 for unlimited storage. I am aware that I am comparing two distinct services – mp3tunes offers the added value of streaming our collection. Therefore, a reasonable price for mp3tunes to be used as backup and audio file streaming is at $99.99/year for unlimited storage. At this price, I would gladly subscribe. I suspect many more music aficionados, like myself, would too. The final deficiency in mp3tunes is the music discovery aspect that any music collector needs. The perfect streaming services will play music that I do not own along with the music that is already in my collection. Even better if the user can control the number of recommended songs to get. For example, every fifth song will be a song recommendation. mp3tunes does offer a music discovery feature called the “smart bar”, but these songs do not play along with our music, the user needs to actively select one of these recommendations in order to play it.
I want a backup company such as Carbonite or mp3tunes.com to either support streaming with recommendaion or a streaming company such as Pandora or Slacker to offer the ability to upload my collection. If Pandora needs a killer feature to compete with Slacker or vice-versa, this is it! How great would it be to keep enjoying Pandora or Slacker as we have always done, but with the ability to throw in music from our own collection? Great isn’t? These streaming services will also enjoy the benefit of the added revenue stream. The same price that I was willing to pay mp3tunes, I am willing to pay to Pandora or Slacker – $99.99/year for the added ability to upload all my music collection and stream from their existing interfaces.
I have my wallet out for any company ready to offer me all of these features all wrapped up in one perfect music streaming service. What are your thoughts on this?
The perfect music streaming service does not exist. I can, however, create a perfect system from pieces of the existing streaming services. What is the perfect streaming music service? It is a place where you can upload all your music and the site will allow you to stream from any computer or music player device. In addition, the site will throw in new music based on your collection. These features exist, but not as part of one streaming service.
As a digital music collector, it is very important to keep a copy of my collection backed up offsite. I can use a backup service such as Carbonite, but this solution will not allow me to stream my collection. If Carbonite adds this feature, I would signup in a minute. There is no reason for Carbonite to stop with music files. This backup company can offer similar hosting services for peoples backed-up video files, picture files, and text files.
A service that allows me to backup my music collection and stream from any browser or from a wide selection of mobile units is mp3tunes. The same person that brought us mp3.com is now in charge of mp3tunes.com, Michael Robertson. mp3tunes gets really close to the perfect streaming service. Michael Roberton’s company falls short in price, storage limitation, and music discovery. The price for mp3tunes ranges from $39.95/year for 50GB to $139.95/year for 200GB. Music aficionados, like myself, will easily surpass the amount of storage that this site can provide. I own close to 300GB of mp3 tunes. This solution will not be all-inclusive to my collection, even at the highest price point. Let’s put the storage limit aside, the price can seem very deep when compared to Carbonite’s $54.95 for unlimited storage. I am aware that I am comparing two distinct services – mp3tunes offers the added value of streaming our collection. Therefore, a reasonable price for mp3tunes to be used as backup and audio file streaming is at $99.99/year for unlimited storage. At this price, I would gladly subscribe. I suspect many more music aficionados, like myself, would too. The final deficiency in mp3tunes is the music discovery aspect that any music collector needs. The perfect streaming services will play music that I do not own along with the music that is already in my collection. Even better if the user can control the number of recommended songs to get. For example, every fifth song will be a song recommendation. mp3tunes does offer a music discovery feature called the “smart bar”, but these songs do not play along with our music, the user needs to actively select one of these recommendations in order to play it.
I want a backup company such as Carbonite or mp3tunes.com to either support streaming with recommendaion or a streaming company such as Pandora or Slacker to offer the ability to upload my collection. If Pandora needs a killer feature to compete with Slacker or vice-versa, this is it! How great would it be to keep enjoying Pandora or Slacker as we have always done, but with the ability to throw in music from our own collection? Great isn’t? These streaming services will also enjoy the benefit of the added revenue stream. The same price that I was willing to pay mp3tunes, I am willing to pay to Pandora or Slacker – $99.99/year for the added ability to upload all my music collection and stream from their existing interfaces.
I have my wallet out for any company ready to offer me all of these features all wrapped up in one perfect music streaming service. What are your thoughts on this?
You can leave an optional "tip" with Mahalo's virtual currency, Mahalo Dollars. If you are asking a difficult question that might require some research, or if you'd like a wide variety of feedback, a higher tip often leads to more answers to your question.
M$3 Answers
I can see how this would be an extremely useful service. I guess I have a couple of points to make.
First, the discovery playlist integration is a good idea. Some added features might be useful, such as keeping a log of any new songs listened to so that users don't have to catch it before it disappears, breaking their listening... mood. This way people could go back later to look at the new songs they heard, maybe listen again to find that one they really liked, and go on from there.
Second, one of the reasons Carbonite doesn't offer audio streaming and mp3tunes only offers limited storage capacity could be because of how people use the service. Consider the situation that Carbonite offered audio streaming with their unlimited capacity account. Suddenly their service will be used in a completely new way, draw in new customers who would have never used it before, and all the current customers would upload their music collections. This may sound good in theory but this suddenly increases the required capacity greatly for everyone's music, increasing their costs, and increasing your price substantially.
Solution: Do something like what gmail did. Many people listen to the same music, if the server could match up identical or similar uploaded files and manage them so only one copy of each needed to be stored at a time then this requirement would drop by orders of magnitude, making the service much more viable. This could also greatly cut down on some upload times, just skipping over music which is already available on their server.
I think this would make a good viable website. And competing with current offerings it would probably do pretty well, and for a low cost. The added complexity of writing a server which handles a more efficient storage of multiple files could also serve as somewhat of a barrier for competition also. I'm not sure how licensing works in this situation though.
First, the discovery playlist integration is a good idea. Some added features might be useful, such as keeping a log of any new songs listened to so that users don't have to catch it before it disappears, breaking their listening... mood. This way people could go back later to look at the new songs they heard, maybe listen again to find that one they really liked, and go on from there.
Second, one of the reasons Carbonite doesn't offer audio streaming and mp3tunes only offers limited storage capacity could be because of how people use the service. Consider the situation that Carbonite offered audio streaming with their unlimited capacity account. Suddenly their service will be used in a completely new way, draw in new customers who would have never used it before, and all the current customers would upload their music collections. This may sound good in theory but this suddenly increases the required capacity greatly for everyone's music, increasing their costs, and increasing your price substantially.
Solution: Do something like what gmail did. Many people listen to the same music, if the server could match up identical or similar uploaded files and manage them so only one copy of each needed to be stored at a time then this requirement would drop by orders of magnitude, making the service much more viable. This could also greatly cut down on some upload times, just skipping over music which is already available on their server.
I think this would make a good viable website. And competing with current offerings it would probably do pretty well, and for a low cost. The added complexity of writing a server which handles a more efficient storage of multiple files could also serve as somewhat of a barrier for competition also. I'm not sure how licensing works in this situation though.
images:
You can leave an optional "tip" with Mahalo's virtual currency, Mahalo Dollars. If you are asking a difficult question that might require some research, or if you'd like a wide variety of feedback, a higher tip often leads to more answers to your question.
M$Report Abuse
These are good ideas but skylive drive, and box.net will allow you to back up and stream some music files for free as well.. Also playlist.com lets you stream any file but you need a host to link it too.. I am sure you could integrate your idea with that one probably..
source(s):
http://www.box.net
http://www.skylivedrive.com (I think have not been to the site in awhile in is msn hosted)
http://www.playlist.com
http://www.box.net
http://www.skylivedrive.com (I think have not been to the site in awhile in is msn hosted)
http://www.playlist.com
You can leave an optional "tip" with Mahalo's virtual currency, Mahalo Dollars. If you are asking a difficult question that might require some research, or if you'd like a wide variety of feedback, a higher tip often leads to more answers to your question.
M$
I'm a former on-air personality--a music aficionado, I guess--and I have no idea what I'd do with that much music. A guy recently told me he had 1900 songs on his iPod. I asked him "Why"?"
In any event, playlist.com isn't too bad, although I've noticed they're now inserting commercials.
Just click the link and press the play button.
THE GARY ALLEN SHOW!
http://www.playlist.com/playlist/14923168011/standalone
GARY ALLEN LITE-FM
http://www.playlist.com/playlist/15284437515/standalone
GARY ALLEN SWINGS
http://www.playlist.com/playlist/15284343563/standalone
CLUB GA
http://www.playlist.com/playlist/17073347595/standalone
The lists are always being changed, rearranged, etc. when I have time.
Suggestions are gladly welcomed!
In any event, playlist.com isn't too bad, although I've noticed they're now inserting commercials.
Just click the link and press the play button.
THE GARY ALLEN SHOW!
http://www.playlist.com/playlist/14923168011/standalone
GARY ALLEN LITE-FM
http://www.playlist.com/playlist/15284437515/standalone
GARY ALLEN SWINGS
http://www.playlist.com/playlist/15284343563/standalone
CLUB GA
http://www.playlist.com/playlist/17073347595/standalone
The lists are always being changed, rearranged, etc. when I have time.
Suggestions are gladly welcomed!
You can leave an optional "tip" with Mahalo's virtual currency, Mahalo Dollars. If you are asking a difficult question that might require some research, or if you'd like a wide variety of feedback, a higher tip often leads to more answers to your question.
M$
