10 ms·

Amazon Cloud Drive and Amazon Cloud Player

261 points by davidedicillo 16y ago

dbjacobs 16y ago
Storage cost is $1/yr/GB which is similar to Amazon's S3 reduced redundancy storage. It is unclear which level of reliability Amazon is promising for the cloud drive. If it is the higher level, it is a good deal.
- amock 16y ago
  If you use enough bandwidth it's a good deal even for the reduced redundancy storage. Only having a web interface makes it a lot less simple than Dropbox, though.
  - adpowers 16y ago
    I'm uploading a ton of photos to test it out, then I'll delete them all. For free! PS: Sorry for hogging your upstream Alan.
- dillona 16y ago
  In addition, it sounds like any songs you buy from their MP3 store are not counted towards your storage.
josh33 16y ago
Is an iPhone app against the iOS T's&C's?
- YooLi 16y ago
  Lack of an iOS player is interesting. I don't see a technical reason why Amazon couldn't make one. Ditto with an iOS video player for Amazon Video-on-Demand. Not making either of those (plus the Amazon Appstore & Kindle) makes me think Amazon is working on an Android platform of their own. They have the capabilities for a pretty solid media-ecosystem (music, video, apps, books, etc).
  - unfletch 16y ago
    It actually looks like they could make the web-based UI work in Mobile Safari without too much work. (Easy for me to say.) The UI renders perfectly already. As far as I can tell, playback is the only thing that doesn't work. (But if you "download" a track it'll open in the built-in quicktime player and start playing.) Despite the Flash requirement for uploading, they're already doing non-Flash playback. I don't have Flash installed on my desktop and playback works great. Seeing as Safari has had background audio support since before it was granted to third-party apps, the web UI would be a decent stopgap in lieu if a native iOS app. Here's hoping it's just a bug!
    - trotsky 16y ago
      In a recent article about html5 audio there was a lot of talk about how safari intentionally didn't support automatic audio playback (vs. say chrome and chrome lite). I'm guessing that this would mean you'd have to click a button each time the song changed in your playlist - this would probably suck enough that it explains why they didn't launch with mobile safari support.
      - unfletch 16y ago
        Damn, you're right. I'd played around with Cloud Player a bit last night in Safari/Mac, but I guess I never let it play two songs in a row. I just tried to play an album and it stopped after the first song.
- mschwar99 16y ago
  The 30% cut of in app sales has to figure in somewhere as well. First time in a while I got a warm fuzzy for having an Android device.
- sudoscience 16y ago
  Surely Amazon didn't want Apple to have any advance notice.
kin 16y ago
Wow, Amazon is doing all kinds of great things for Android. First Amazon's Android App store with the awesome Test Drive feature and now this!
tuhin 16y ago
Why would one not prefer to use http://droptun.es/ http://droptun.es/. Is it the added meta info about music and other things that Amazon can use since it has a huge collection of music?
- kin 16y ago
  That and the Cloud Player can be accessed on Android devices. Meta info wins me over. It's frustrating to see inconsistent meta tags on things like Grooveshark.
ffumarola 16y ago
The 20gb free for purchasing an album makes this a pretty clutch deal. They don't compete with dropbox's sync functionality, but they sure do on price and the mp3 cloud player!
- blocke 16y ago
  Hello cloud based iTunes.
- unfletch 16y ago
  In case you missed it in Amazon's terms, the free upgrade is temporary. It expires in a year, at which point you can start paying or be bumped back down to the free level. ...you will be automatically eligible for the 20 GB plan for one year from the date of your MP3 album purchase. Unless you set your account to auto-renew to a paid plan, the 20 GB plan will revert to a free plan one year from the date of your MP3 album purchase. From http://www.amazon.com/gp/feature.html/?ie=UTF8&docId=1000667531 http://www.amazon.com/gp/feature.html/?ie=UTF8&docId=100...
  - gfodor 16y ago
    I doubt this will stick. The reason is because ultimately that means Amazon will be put in a position to delete peoples' files (if they fail to pay for their 20GB that month it reverts.) That could lead to lawsuits etc, probably not worth the chump change they'll save by revertting those plans.
    - lftl 16y ago
      Maybe they'll just render some random portion of the files inaccessible unless you pay up? Or just make your account read-only until you clear out enough of the files. Plenty of ways to handle it without wholesale deletion.
itsnotvalid 16y ago
As a non-US there is no way for me to use this. Just put aside that, is it actually any legal reason for using things like dropbox to upload music purchased and streamed for private uses? BTW that one album/20GB offers only last until the end of the year, and it only last for a year. After that, you would have the habit of using the service but be reverted to the free plan. However since all the new purchases on amazon are automatically saved without counting towards the quota, I guess that solves the problem for many android users. Just that I don't listen to many of bands/artists that put their songs on Amazon MP3 may make this offer less appealing.
- jbarham 16y ago
  > As a non-US there is no way for me to use this. I'm in Australia and that's what it looked like to me initially too, but after manually uploading an MP3 and then attempting to play it, the Cloud Player then worked.
  - nl 16y ago
    This worked for me too. But when I tried to install the Android player it said it wasn't available on my carrier (Optus)
  - studioprisoner 16y ago
    I'm in Australia too, and this didn't work. Was really looking forward to using it to store my music online to play anywhere. Uploaded an mp3 manually and tried to play, but got the warning of being outside the US :(
- jmatt 16y ago
  Just that I don't listen to many of bands/artists that put their songs on Amazon MP3 may make this offer less appealing. I don't know much about this but cdbaby[1] will do that for what seems like an affordable price. It just takes a bit of effort and sacrificing some profits in lieu of better distribution. I'm not saying it's right for everyone, but it's possible to get music out there if you are an artist. And cdbaby will let artists choose where/how they digitally distribute so artists could just choose Amazon MP3 if they wished. [1] http://members.cdbaby.com/whatwedo/default.aspx http://members.cdbaby.com/whatwedo/default.aspx
suprgeek 16y ago
I wonder how telling this is: "We do not guarantee that Your Files will not be subject to misappropriation, loss or damage and we will not be liable if they are. You're responsible for maintaining appropriate security, protection and backup of Your Files." Is it "use at your own risk no matter how much money you pay us"?
- wmf 16y ago
  Consumer services don't have SLAs. They just don't.
jkincaid 16y ago
I think Amazon is trying to become the backbone for the 'alternative' set of Android core apps that will inevitably be developed. These apps will appeal to any carrier/OEM that wants to stop licensing from Google, or from companies like Amazon and Facebook who may launch their own devices with splintered versions of Android. My guess is that Amazon will own content delivery for these devices (books, movies, TV, music) and that Microsoft will round out the rest, with a Bing Maps app and an email app that supports Gmail etc but syncs nicely with Hotmail (which has been totally overhauled since you last tried it). This is entirely a guess on my part, mind you.
- jmatt 16y ago
  I think it's bold of Amazon to launch essentially a minimum viable product and beat Apple to the punch. Now they have customers and are getting meaningful feedback to make future improvements. You rarely see this outside of Apple and startups. I'm glad to see Apple running into some real competition.
  - matthewslotkin 16y ago
    since when does Apple launch minimum viable products? that is the opposite of what Apple does.
    - deleted 16y ago
      [deleted]
    - jmatt 16y ago
      Go look at all the complaining from when the iPhone original was announced and came out. It didn't have a number of features that were considered at the time required: The original release of the operating system included Visual Voicemail, multi-touch gestures, HTML email, Safari web browser, threaded text messaging, and YouTube. However, many features like MMS, third-party apps, and copy and paste were not supported at release. These missing features led to hackers "jailbreaking" their phones which added these missing features. Official software updates slowly added these features. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IPhone_(original)#Software_History http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IPhone_(original)#Software_Hist... Looking back now they clearly did the right thing. In articles at the time when journalists did a feature comparisons it lost. But when people and journalists actually used it - it was awesome. I argue a product can be both a MVC and have simple, powerful, useful, polished features. Just look at the ipod and iphone (yeah similar reviews happened for ipod. See the infamous Slashdot quote).
ammmir 16y ago
is there an S3-like (or simplified) API for this service?
- jonursenbach 16y ago
  Not at launch.
sandipc 16y ago
how long until Dropbox makes a full-featured Cloud Player of their own?
- zzleeper 16y ago
  Won't happen, as long as their costs are at least as higher as amazon's
jazzychad 16y ago
on ubuntu desktop: "The Amazon MP3 Uploader only supports Microsoft Windows (XP, Vista, 7) or Mac OS X running on Intel-based hardware." yet the normal clouddrive uploader works. weird.
- TREYisRAD 16y ago
  The MP3 uploader seems to look for and scan an iTunes directory for music. Linux's lack of iTunes could be the issue. edit: It also imports playlists, etc.
- deleted 16y ago
  [deleted]
- deleted 16y ago
  [deleted]
- elq 16y ago
  the osx version seems to be a very thin veneer over an adobe air app. I can't imagine why linux isn't supported.
joseakle 16y ago
How long until someone posts their username(s) and password(s) to their whole music collection(s) ....
- jambo 16y ago
  You agree not to do that, and Amazon has your real name if you've ever made a purchase &| uploaded >5gigs of music. Most people I know use their Amazon account for other purchases and won't risk their account being closed for violating the terms. [edited for clarity]
  - MichaelEGR 16y ago
    Yeah account sharing is watched and when detected the suspect account will get flagged for a TOS violation. I can't tell you how quickly the ban hammer may come down as things go, but 2 devices is likely not going to trigger it.
jambo 16y ago
Can anyone see AmazonMP3 tracks in their library? I've purchased tons of music from AmazonMP3, and Cloud Player shows an empty library & 0 purchased songs. It seems like a big miss to launch this way. Hopefully it's just a bug.
- wmf 16y ago
  I don't think it's a bug; the site is pretty carefully worded. For whatever reason, sideloading from the MP3 store is not retroactive.
  - jambo 16y ago
    If that's the case, I'd bet it's for license reasons. An AmazonMP3 purchase made after Cloud Drive is launched could be described as having been copied for personal use, at the time of purchase, to your Cloud Drive. Allowing previously purchased tracks to be streamed without first uploading them looks more like what Lala was doing, and they had to negotiate streaming licenses. Though I'd wonder if there is any real implementation difference in Amazon's case.
    - vessenes 16y ago
      Bingo. They encourage you to upload your Amazon MP3's directly throughout the launch site. This is a licensing issue.
- sudoscience 16y ago
  It says on the landing page that purchases pre cloud drive are not synced. You'll have to go back and sync them with your pc.
  - jambo 16y ago
    Thanks. I missed that.
- sudoscience 16y ago
  It says on the landing page that purchases pre cloud drive are not synced. You'll have to go back and sync them with your pc.
die_sekte 16y ago
The laptop is a HP Envy running a full-screen OS X Firefox. Man. Seems most designers can't fake a realistic chrome for web pages.
slackerIII 16y ago
If you want a free service to stream your music from your home computer to your work computer/android/iOS device, check out my service: http://www.audiogalaxy.com http://www.audiogalaxy.com Since we don't store the music in the cloud, we don't have any size limits (the current winner has about 530,000 files). Obviously this only works if you leave your home computer on, but we've found that isn't a problem for most folks.
- jonursenbach 16y ago
  Didn't Audiogalaxy used to be a P2P service in the early 00s?
  - slackerIII 16y ago
    It did. We are some of the same folks, but a totally different service now.
    - rbarooah 16y ago
      It was magnificent back then. I know it's not the same thing, but seeing the logo and installing the new 'helper' gave me a good feeling.
    - bvi 16y ago
      Wow. Nostalgia. I'll have to try this out again, after a decade.
    - blasdel 16y ago
      Wow! I'd been thinking about researching iTunes -> iPhone streaming apps, but now I don't even have to — I know wholeheartedly that anything y'all put out is going to be awesome. It's weird to realize that 'brands' really do have worth. Audiogalaxy 1.0 was the first to really execute on an amazing new UX since the days of IRC Fserves and Napster, and after your legal problems it wasn't till OiNK (and now what.cd) showed up years later that anything nearly as good was available.
    - revorad 16y ago
jbarham 16y ago
How's that North Carolina data center coming along, Apple?! ;)
pkulak 16y ago
Streaming seems a bit silly when I've got 16 gigs sitting empty on my phone. I just want synching. I'll use Pandora if I want to stream. And then I'm not restricted to just my library.
- CrazedGeek 16y ago
  I have around 60GB of FLACs on my hard drive. At LAME's V0 encoding, that's around 20GB of MP3s. And it's ever increasing. Considering that SDHC has a max of 32GB and SDXC doesn't have much support (much less microSDXC), there's definitely a market for something like this. (Probably very niche, but eh... Amazon seems to be positioning this as kind of a Box.net thing with an emphasis on music storage and playback)
- davidedicillo 16y ago
  Exactly, or Rdio.
- roc 16y ago
  I'd be very surprised if this isn't step 1 to a whole-phone-data-sync solution. Media, Data, third party app API -- the whole shebang.
  - hyperbovine 16y ago
    I think the hype has raced ahead of the technology here. "Streaming everything" on today's smartphones seems to give you about 2 hrs of battery life, a problem for which there does not appear to be a near-term solution. Moreover, no wireless network in America could support that mode of usage on a large scale, and that will also be true for the foreseeable future. Or so it seems to me -- anyone in the know care to comment?
    - MatthewPhillips 16y ago
      There is a solution, which several companies already implement (Rdio and Spotify, at least). You can sync tracks to your device. I haven't used MOG or Rhapsody so I'm not sure if they do it as well (anyone?) but it seems like the obvious solution. It's the best of both worlds, as you can still stream if you want.
dstein64 16y ago
I tried uploading a file to the cloud drive using Chrome, and then I viewed the file. I copied the URL and pasted it into Firefox, where I was not logged in to amazon.com or their cloud storage. It still loaded the file. If you tried doing this with a gmail message, gmail would prompt you to log in. I am not too familiar with cloud storage. Is this a security issue?
- dchest 16y ago
  It didn't work for me: SignatureDoesNotMatch The request signature we calculated does not match the signature you provided.
  - dstein64 16y ago
    The first time I tried it, I used a PDF file, since it opens in the browser and I could easily access the URL. I just tried again, and I was able to replicate the issue I mentioned, this time using Chrome and Internet Explorer. I tried uploading a different file type (a simple text file) that also loads in the browser, and I was able to replicate with that file as well.
naithemilkman 16y ago
Am I correct to say that this is essentially a web based version of iTunes?
- ctdonath 16y ago
  Insofar as the iPad is essentially an MP3 player, yes.
  - naithemilkman 16y ago
    I don't get your example? You cite one use of the iPad and compared it to my statement. So this means I'm looking at it too narrowly? Elaborate please?
    - ctdonath 16y ago
      You cite one use of Amazon Cloud Drive, which I compared to. Yes, the point was to illustrate you're looking at it too narrowly. To elaborate: Yes, Amazon Cloud Drive can act like iTunes, insofar as you buy tracks from Amazon and can play them thru a browser via the MP3 player. No question Amazon will, like Apple & iTunes, expand this ability by using this "cloud drive" as the focal point for an assortment of applications, now that Amazon is in the e-book, e-movie, e-music, etc. business. I expect the Kindle will start using this in both overt and covert fashion. As Amazon observes what people use their "cloud drive" for, they will provide matching services to enhance and lock-in use thereof. The intent is to make this a disruptive product: its full potential may be unclear, but it's the groundwork for new ways of doing things - and new ways for Amazon to make money.
      - naithemilkman 16y ago
        I guess I was looking at it from a point of view of 'what it is now'. A kind of dropbox+iTunes mashup. You're coming from a 'what it could be' which is at best guess in your own words, unclear. Right now they are using music as a beach head into the market. In future it could be something video or word processing related. Is that what you're trying to say?
jfeldstein2 16y ago
There's an "upload your own mp3's" feature. I think this means I can stop waiting for google music. Except: > You have 5.0 GB of Cloud Drive storage. Upload your entire music collection. I don't think this is going to work...
ajg1977 16y ago
I wonder if they're doing anything clever to reduce storage size. For example - an MP3/AAC song purchased from the same service has a small unique header (e.g. where your iTunes account name is stored) and then identical music data. I imagine the music companies would have a hissy fit and demand streaming payments if that was the case though.
- wiredfool 16y ago
  Their prices are pretty close to the base level s3 prices, except for transfer.
- trotsky 16y ago
  In my mind there is no question that they'll be doing de-duplication here. You don't need to rely on a header key, you just take something like a sha1 hash and the size. Services like dropbox do this - even making it so you don't have to upload non-unique files. I have always assumed that all of the non-encrypted remote backup solutions that live on s3 or elsewhere do this too. It's just too easy for a massive storage space savings to not do it.
oskee80 16y ago
What happens if your phone is in a poor reception area, or without internet connection? Then you can't listen to music? Can the app manage which songs you'd also like to have stored locally on the phone? Is this meant to supplement your old ways of syncing music to the phone or replace it?
MichaelEGR 16y ago
Glad to see the comments flood in for this and see it hit #1 on HN so quickly as I was beginning to wonder when it would ship. I was contracted to work on the Amazon MP3 v2.0 app rearchitecting the download architecture and adding cloud drive download support. It was "very interesting" being the only outside contractor / software architect level dev to be hired by A2Z / Amazon to work on core architecture for Amazon MP3. I finished my involvement mid-Feb. I guess I'm just posting to get an account started here on HN as I'm launching some very compelling Android platform / middleware soon called TyphonRT. I've been bootstrapping for years and this recent Amazon MP3 contract has opened up enough runway for me to launch my tech in the coming months. Hopefully I'll have some more time to post in the future too.
baddox 16y ago
Free persistent storage of Amazon digital downloads is the big feature here (to me). I've always thought it was insane how Steam lets you download dozens of gigabytes of video games ad infinitum, yet Apple's and Amazon's music stores require you to backup your digital purchases.
wheels 16y ago
I think there are two really interesting things about this: • This is the first time Amazon has pulled together the two major branches of their business, retail and cloud infrastructure, into something (dare I say it?) synergetic. • Amazon is taking the first steps into the non-retail consumer web, where, if successful, they'll probably give a good scare to a handful of startups as they sweep across segments (and without the Google / Facebook-like startup shopping).
- jrockway 16y ago
  Not necessarily true, really. When you save your current location on a Kindle, that's handled by an app running on EC2. That's just an example: I am sure pretty much all of Amazon's products use the AWS infrastructure.
  - edanm 16y ago
    That's what AWS was developed for originally - running Amazon's products.
    - OstiaAntica 16y ago
      Actually, that is sort of a myth. AWS was built independently of the core Amazon.com platform and specifically for the cloud marketplace.
      - edanm 16y ago
        Interesting. I'm pretty sure I heard that in a talk on AWS given by an Amazon product manager, but I could be wrong (or he could be wrong).
- originalgeek 16y ago
  Seems like that synergy is SOP for them. How many sales do they make every day?
markgx 16y ago
It would be interesting to see if they expand the scope of Cloud Drive to include Dropbox-like syncing.
dotBen 16y ago
The music aspect of this makes a great headline - and also great case for why the avg joe consumer should want all this cloud storage. But for me the real story here is the ability to store any file or document, and aggressive prices of bigger storage tiers. Dropbox's prices have always seemed unreasonably high to me - and I'm tempted to move all my personal docs over to Amazon and use DropBox just for social sharing.
- cma 16y ago
  Dropbox's prices are cheap, but only when you consider how many free plans you are subsidizing.
ditojim 16y ago
can you export from their cloud drive?
- marklabedz 16y ago
  Yes - they provide download capability, however it's at the individual file level only right now.
  - ditojim 16y ago
    hopefully they add the ability to bulk export. otherwise, you are semi-locked into this cloud music solution. what happens when a better/cheaper service comes out and you need to move your music?
is_computer_on 16y ago
Would be great if it wasn't illegal to actually upload your music collection on there. I doubt that when you bought your music you got the right to distribute it to a third party which means uploading it onto Amazon's servers would constitute copyright infringement. Songs bought from Amazon probably come with a license that allows you to upload it to Amazon Cloud Player now, but with the music you already own and Music you buy somewhere else you're out of luck.
justanotheratom 16y ago
Just checking, did Ray Ozzie join Amazon?
- tybris 16y ago
  I'm sure they would love to have him, but they've always been 5 years ahead of whatever Ray Ozzie did.
jasonkester 16y ago
This is actually a little bit worrying as an entrepreneur building things on top of Amazon's Web Services. Amazon has always made a point of not building services on top of its Cloud offerings that directly compete with its users. Cloud Drive sets a precedent for them as the first time they've gone against that principle. There are lots of "low hanging fruit" companies that were built on the understanding that Amazon wasn't interested in implementing that stuff themselves. There's no debating that this will make Amazon a ton of money. It remains to be seen, however, how much it will cost them in developer loyalty and businesses that never get built because "If they did it to JungleDisk, they'll do it to us".
- swombat 16y ago
  I've said it before, I'll say it again: ( http://swombat.com/2011/2/22/predictability-of-closed-platforms http://swombat.com/2011/2/22/predictability-of-closed-platfo... ) > I would argue that only one thing is entirely predictable about closed platforms: they will do whatever is in the business's interest. When building your business on someone else's platform, you should always assume that if it is in the platform owner's interest, they will shut you down tomorrow with no warning. > So, you need to do two things at the very least: > 1. Ensure your goals and the platform owner's goals are always in harmonious agreement. > 2. Have a backup plan for what happens if your access to the platform is revoked tomorrow. > People seem to keep learning this lesson over and over again... with Facebook, with Twitter, and these days with Apple... And these days, with Amazon?
  - jasonkester 16y ago
    Agreed. It's generally a bad idea to build your entire product around a missing feature in the Big Guy's thing. The surprising thing about Amazon, however, is that they've gone out of their way to be the exception to that rule over the last 4 years. JungleDisk was the posterchild for "business that will only last until Amazon incorporates their product as a feature", and yet it continued to survive as Amazon released infrastructure product after infrastructure product. And in the few cases where they did move into a space where somebody had built something, they did it delicately and cooperatively. They really were the Good Guy. I'm hoping that this was just the one space that so obviously needed filling from a Company Strategy perspective that they're making an exception in this case. They've built up a lot of goodwill. It'd be a shame to see it squandered.
jasonkester 16y ago
It's surprising that their player doesn't work in Mobile Safari. On my iPod touch, I can load the page and see my music (though it helpfully tells me I should upgrade to IE), but nothing will play. I notice that they used Flash for the uploader. Surely they wouldn't have used it as the only option for the player. Strange.
jimmydo 16y ago
It doesn't seem like they currently do this, but it would be great if Amazon applied file de-duplication (like Dropbox) to at least music files. If I'm trying to upload a song that Amazon already has on its own servers, it should just use that copy instead of uploading a new copy from my computer.
- trotsky 16y ago
  MP3.com once got in a ton of hot water for a version of that. They had an integrated ripping system that if they already had the content it just checked the "hash" of the TOC and granted you access to the music. In this way you could borrow a stack of cds and very quickly have access to all of your friends music. I'm not sure if having to upload your music before it's de-duplicated makes a legal difference, but I bet it came into play. I have long thought of the possibility of hacking up the dropbox binary to fake hashes of known music I didn't have and get access instantly Judge Jed S. Rakoff, in the case UMG v. MP3.com, ruled in favor of the record labels against MP3.com and the service on the copyright law provision of "making mechanical copies for commercial use without permission from the copyright owner." Before damage was awarded, MP3.com settled with plaintiff, UMG Recordings, for $53.4 million, in exchange for the latter's permission to use its entire music collection. https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/MP3.com#My.MP3.com https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/MP3.com#My.MP...
dchest 16y ago
"The 5 GB free storage plan is available to all Amazon.com customers, however further upgrades to the storage plan are currently unavailable in the following countries: Austria , Belgium , Bulgaria , Cyprus , Czech Republic , Denmark , Estonia , Finland , France , Germany , Greece , Hungary , Ireland , Italy , Latvia , Lithuania , Luxembourg , Malta , Netherlands , Poland , Portugal , Romania , Slovakia , Slovenia , Spain , Sweden , United Kingdom" Very strange, why is that?
- relix 16y ago
  I know that in Belgium there is a law where storage which can be used to play pirated media has a surcharge that is used to compensate authors for the possible loss of income because of the potential pirating. Maybe this is a European directive and enforced in all of those countries, and they need to figure out how they're going to approach this law.
JabavuAdams 16y ago
Is using the term "cloud" a branding / marketing mistake? The cloud is generic and multi-vendor. It's a utility. This angle makes sense when talking to developers. OTOH, I could see a lot of users being confused because they put stuff "in the cloud", but they can't get it back (from another vendor i.e. different cloud).
- technomancy 16y ago
  > The cloud is generic and multi-vendor. It's a utility. This angle makes sense when talking to developers. I just set my dad up with SFTP on a dreamhost account, and he keeps calling it his "cloud storage" account. I think beyond the developer world it's starting to just mean "I don't have to back it up, and I can reach it from anywhere."
  - JabavuAdams 16y ago
    Well, my points were: 1) Vendor-centric: It's a missed opportunity for Dreamhost, because your Dad won't think of their brand. 2) User-centric: What happens when he has two "cloud" accounts from different vendors? Will he expect them to work together?
twodayslate 16y ago
They fact that they are going to start backing up the Amazon MP3s is great news. Previously it was impossible to redownload a track once you have already downloaded it. Luckily I did not lose to much music when I got a new computer since I had a personal backup. I would love Amazon Cloud Drive to have desktop integration like Dropbox. Doesn't google have a cloud service now? It just doesn't have a pretty GUI or desktop integration?
jorgeleo 16y ago
I like this... But I would like ti more if there is a webdav address to access the storage from my iPad. I know that there are other solutions, but 5GB free... Does anybody knows how to access Amazon Cloud Drive using Webdab?
frsandstone 16y ago
Do we know the bitrate of the stream?
forgotAgain 16y ago
It's becoming clear that the main competitor for iPad will come from Amazon. Apple will not be beat by a competitor on look and feel. Anyone who wants to compete with them will need to find their own area of strength. Amazon's strength is its years of experience with Amazon Web Services.
- ctdonath 16y ago
  Recall the article opining that Amazon will be giving away Kindles to Prime members by November 2011 (so far, price drops are on a straight line to $0 then, and when asked Bezos said "oh, you noticed?" and smiled). Maybe they are gearing up for an iPad-type model, laying the groundwork for users buying into disparate parts (streaming video, cloud storage, ebooks, etc.) so when the convergence arrives millions of customers will find themselves already living a ubiquitous Amazon life.
tzury 16y ago
I suspect this 5GB quote is a "fake", since there is no need to actually "copy" a song to the User's virtual drive, rather add a pointer to a copy already available on their platform, that is, if 1M users are buying a popular song, there is no need to clone this song million times, right? Having said that, since there are smart people working on this platform on amazon, I am sure they don't make a physical clone, which raises the question already mentioned above, why limit to 5GB?
- MatthewPhillips 16y ago
  There is no cap on music purchased from Amazon MP3 (going forward). The cap is on uploaded files, since there is no way to link your uploaded copy of Bad Romance with my uploaded copy of Bad Romance and know that they are the same.
  - podperson 16y ago
    Surely there is in fact a way, at least much of the time. In general, I assume encoding a digitized song with a given codec and quality settings is deterministic, so the files have some chance of being identical. Next, if the track were identified using a common process (e.g. CDDB) it might easily be possible to identify them as being identical in origin and then perform some tests to see if they are in fact identical and convert one into a pointer to the other.
    - tzury 16y ago
      hash is the right (and only) way to do this.
      - podperson 16y ago
        My suggested approach assumes hash as a baseline approach (identify actually identical files -- which DropBox is apparently already doing) and goes beyond this (identify files that are identical in source and intent, but different owing to random trivial errors).
  - 16y ago
DonnyV 16y ago
Amazon's storage plans are expensive compared to Google's Amazon 5 GB (FREE) 20 GB ($20 / year) 50 GB ($50 / year) 100 GB ($100 / year) 200 GB ($200 / year) 500 GB ($500 / year) 1000 GB ($1000 / year) Google 20 GB ($5.00 USD per year) 80 GB ($20.00 USD per year) 200 GB ($50.00 USD per year) 400 GB ($100.00 USD per year) 1 TB ($256.00 USD per year)
- techtalsky 16y ago
  Yeah, my collection is 120 GB. I'd love to try this just so I could DJ from my whole collection while at a friend's house (instead of just what's on my phone) but wouldn't pay ~$200 for the privelege.
- dfran02 16y ago
  I happened to download an album from the Amazon mp3 Android app and they are giving me 20 GB for free for a year. If I don't upgrade (start paying) they'll revert me to the 5GB plan after the year is up.
pilom 16y ago
This page crashes my computer. Not just IE7, my whole computer. Any idea what may be causing it?
misterkeeter 16y ago
It feels like amazon is slowly dismantling the advantages of other content services. It's now competing head to head with one or several other companies within each media space.
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kasperset 16y ago
"All communications are encrypted using HTTPS, so that your data can pass securely over the Internet". This means that data is "stored without" encryption.
mone 16y ago
Am I missing something or is Amazon (Cloud Drive) not giving the ability to import songs purchased from Amazon prior to this date??
IgorPartola 16y ago
And yet another service that does not support Ubuntu... Ubuntu One just might get my money after all.
jongraehl 16y ago
No drag and drop (in Chrome). Slow and clumsy. Dropbox has a far better user experience (but more expensive storage).
getpost 16y ago
The OS X uploader requires installation of Adobe AIR. Adobe bloatware? Another piece of software checking for updates? Another piece of software that needs to be updated? No thank you. I'm all for getting a product out the door, but is a native OS X app that much trouble for an organization like Amazon? Does this bother anyone else, or is it just me?

261 points by davidedicillo 16y ago

Storage cost is $1/yr/GB which is similar to Amazon's S3 reduced redundancy storage. It is unclear which level of reliability Amazon is promising for the cloud drive. If it is the higher level, it is a good deal.

amock 16y ago
If you use enough bandwidth it's a good deal even for the reduced redundancy storage. Only having a web interface makes it a lot less simple than Dropbox, though.
- adpowers 16y ago
  I'm uploading a ton of photos to test it out, then I'll delete them all. For free! PS: Sorry for hogging your upstream Alan.
dillona 16y ago
In addition, it sounds like any songs you buy from their MP3 store are not counted towards your storage.

josh33 16y ago

Is an iPhone app against the iOS T's&C's?

YooLi 16y ago
Lack of an iOS player is interesting. I don't see a technical reason why Amazon couldn't make one. Ditto with an iOS video player for Amazon Video-on-Demand. Not making either of those (plus the Amazon Appstore & Kindle) makes me think Amazon is working on an Android platform of their own. They have the capabilities for a pretty solid media-ecosystem (music, video, apps, books, etc).
- unfletch 16y ago
  It actually looks like they could make the web-based UI work in Mobile Safari without too much work. (Easy for me to say.) The UI renders perfectly already. As far as I can tell, playback is the only thing that doesn't work. (But if you "download" a track it'll open in the built-in quicktime player and start playing.) Despite the Flash requirement for uploading, they're already doing non-Flash playback. I don't have Flash installed on my desktop and playback works great. Seeing as Safari has had background audio support since before it was granted to third-party apps, the web UI would be a decent stopgap in lieu if a native iOS app. Here's hoping it's just a bug!
  - trotsky 16y ago
    In a recent article about html5 audio there was a lot of talk about how safari intentionally didn't support automatic audio playback (vs. say chrome and chrome lite). I'm guessing that this would mean you'd have to click a button each time the song changed in your playlist - this would probably suck enough that it explains why they didn't launch with mobile safari support.
    - unfletch 16y ago
      Damn, you're right. I'd played around with Cloud Player a bit last night in Safari/Mac, but I guess I never let it play two songs in a row. I just tried to play an album and it stopped after the first song.
mschwar99 16y ago
The 30% cut of in app sales has to figure in somewhere as well. First time in a while I got a warm fuzzy for having an Android device.
sudoscience 16y ago
Surely Amazon didn't want Apple to have any advance notice.

kin 16y ago

Wow, Amazon is doing all kinds of great things for Android. First Amazon's Android App store with the awesome Test Drive feature and now this!

tuhin 16y ago

Why would one not prefer to use http://droptun.es/ http://droptun.es/. Is it the added meta info about music and other things that Amazon can use since it has a huge collection of music?

kin 16y ago
That and the Cloud Player can be accessed on Android devices. Meta info wins me over. It's frustrating to see inconsistent meta tags on things like Grooveshark.

ffumarola 16y ago

The 20gb free for purchasing an album makes this a pretty clutch deal. They don't compete with dropbox's sync functionality, but they sure do on price and the mp3 cloud player!

blocke 16y ago
Hello cloud based iTunes.
unfletch 16y ago
In case you missed it in Amazon's terms, the free upgrade is temporary. It expires in a year, at which point you can start paying or be bumped back down to the free level. ...you will be automatically eligible for the 20 GB plan for one year from the date of your MP3 album purchase. Unless you set your account to auto-renew to a paid plan, the 20 GB plan will revert to a free plan one year from the date of your MP3 album purchase. From http://www.amazon.com/gp/feature.html/?ie=UTF8&docId=1000667531 http://www.amazon.com/gp/feature.html/?ie=UTF8&docId=100...
- gfodor 16y ago
  I doubt this will stick. The reason is because ultimately that means Amazon will be put in a position to delete peoples' files (if they fail to pay for their 20GB that month it reverts.) That could lead to lawsuits etc, probably not worth the chump change they'll save by revertting those plans.
  - lftl 16y ago
    Maybe they'll just render some random portion of the files inaccessible unless you pay up? Or just make your account read-only until you clear out enough of the files. Plenty of ways to handle it without wholesale deletion.

itsnotvalid 16y ago

As a non-US there is no way for me to use this. Just put aside that, is it actually any legal reason for using things like dropbox to upload music purchased and streamed for private uses? BTW that one album/20GB offers only last until the end of the year, and it only last for a year. After that, you would have the habit of using the service but be reverted to the free plan. However since all the new purchases on amazon are automatically saved without counting towards the quota, I guess that solves the problem for many android users. Just that I don't listen to many of bands/artists that put their songs on Amazon MP3 may make this offer less appealing.

jbarham 16y ago
> As a non-US there is no way for me to use this. I'm in Australia and that's what it looked like to me initially too, but after manually uploading an MP3 and then attempting to play it, the Cloud Player then worked.
- nl 16y ago
  This worked for me too. But when I tried to install the Android player it said it wasn't available on my carrier (Optus)
- studioprisoner 16y ago
  I'm in Australia too, and this didn't work. Was really looking forward to using it to store my music online to play anywhere. Uploaded an mp3 manually and tried to play, but got the warning of being outside the US :(
jmatt 16y ago
Just that I don't listen to many of bands/artists that put their songs on Amazon MP3 may make this offer less appealing. I don't know much about this but cdbaby[1] will do that for what seems like an affordable price. It just takes a bit of effort and sacrificing some profits in lieu of better distribution. I'm not saying it's right for everyone, but it's possible to get music out there if you are an artist. And cdbaby will let artists choose where/how they digitally distribute so artists could just choose Amazon MP3 if they wished. [1] http://members.cdbaby.com/whatwedo/default.aspx http://members.cdbaby.com/whatwedo/default.aspx

suprgeek 16y ago

I wonder how telling this is: "We do not guarantee that Your Files will not be subject to misappropriation, loss or damage and we will not be liable if they are. You're responsible for maintaining appropriate security, protection and backup of Your Files." Is it "use at your own risk no matter how much money you pay us"?

wmf 16y ago
Consumer services don't have SLAs. They just don't.

jkincaid 16y ago

I think Amazon is trying to become the backbone for the 'alternative' set of Android core apps that will inevitably be developed. These apps will appeal to any carrier/OEM that wants to stop licensing from Google, or from companies like Amazon and Facebook who may launch their own devices with splintered versions of Android. My guess is that Amazon will own content delivery for these devices (books, movies, TV, music) and that Microsoft will round out the rest, with a Bing Maps app and an email app that supports Gmail etc but syncs nicely with Hotmail (which has been totally overhauled since you last tried it). This is entirely a guess on my part, mind you.

jmatt 16y ago
I think it's bold of Amazon to launch essentially a minimum viable product and beat Apple to the punch. Now they have customers and are getting meaningful feedback to make future improvements. You rarely see this outside of Apple and startups. I'm glad to see Apple running into some real competition.
- matthewslotkin 16y ago
  since when does Apple launch minimum viable products? that is the opposite of what Apple does.
  - deleted 16y ago
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  - jmatt 16y ago
    Go look at all the complaining from when the iPhone original was announced and came out. It didn't have a number of features that were considered at the time required: The original release of the operating system included Visual Voicemail, multi-touch gestures, HTML email, Safari web browser, threaded text messaging, and YouTube. However, many features like MMS, third-party apps, and copy and paste were not supported at release. These missing features led to hackers "jailbreaking" their phones which added these missing features. Official software updates slowly added these features. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IPhone_(original)#Software_History http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IPhone_(original)#Software_Hist... Looking back now they clearly did the right thing. In articles at the time when journalists did a feature comparisons it lost. But when people and journalists actually used it - it was awesome. I argue a product can be both a MVC and have simple, powerful, useful, polished features. Just look at the ipod and iphone (yeah similar reviews happened for ipod. See the infamous Slashdot quote).

ammmir 16y ago

is there an S3-like (or simplified) API for this service?

jonursenbach 16y ago
Not at launch.

sandipc 16y ago

how long until Dropbox makes a full-featured Cloud Player of their own?

zzleeper 16y ago
Won't happen, as long as their costs are at least as higher as amazon's

jazzychad 16y ago

on ubuntu desktop: "The Amazon MP3 Uploader only supports Microsoft Windows (XP, Vista, 7) or Mac OS X running on Intel-based hardware." yet the normal clouddrive uploader works. weird.

TREYisRAD 16y ago
The MP3 uploader seems to look for and scan an iTunes directory for music. Linux's lack of iTunes could be the issue. edit: It also imports playlists, etc.
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elq 16y ago
the osx version seems to be a very thin veneer over an adobe air app. I can't imagine why linux isn't supported.

joseakle 16y ago

How long until someone posts their username(s) and password(s) to their whole music collection(s) ....

jambo 16y ago
You agree not to do that, and Amazon has your real name if you've ever made a purchase &| uploaded >5gigs of music. Most people I know use their Amazon account for other purchases and won't risk their account being closed for violating the terms. [edited for clarity]
- MichaelEGR 16y ago
  Yeah account sharing is watched and when detected the suspect account will get flagged for a TOS violation. I can't tell you how quickly the ban hammer may come down as things go, but 2 devices is likely not going to trigger it.

jambo 16y ago

Can anyone see AmazonMP3 tracks in their library? I've purchased tons of music from AmazonMP3, and Cloud Player shows an empty library & 0 purchased songs. It seems like a big miss to launch this way. Hopefully it's just a bug.

wmf 16y ago
I don't think it's a bug; the site is pretty carefully worded. For whatever reason, sideloading from the MP3 store is not retroactive.
- jambo 16y ago
  If that's the case, I'd bet it's for license reasons. An AmazonMP3 purchase made after Cloud Drive is launched could be described as having been copied for personal use, at the time of purchase, to your Cloud Drive. Allowing previously purchased tracks to be streamed without first uploading them looks more like what Lala was doing, and they had to negotiate streaming licenses. Though I'd wonder if there is any real implementation difference in Amazon's case.
  - vessenes 16y ago
    Bingo. They encourage you to upload your Amazon MP3's directly throughout the launch site. This is a licensing issue.
sudoscience 16y ago
It says on the landing page that purchases pre cloud drive are not synced. You'll have to go back and sync them with your pc.
- jambo 16y ago
  Thanks. I missed that.
sudoscience 16y ago
It says on the landing page that purchases pre cloud drive are not synced. You'll have to go back and sync them with your pc.

die_sekte 16y ago

The laptop is a HP Envy running a full-screen OS X Firefox. Man. Seems most designers can't fake a realistic chrome for web pages.

slackerIII 16y ago

If you want a free service to stream your music from your home computer to your work computer/android/iOS device, check out my service: http://www.audiogalaxy.com http://www.audiogalaxy.com Since we don't store the music in the cloud, we don't have any size limits (the current winner has about 530,000 files). Obviously this only works if you leave your home computer on, but we've found that isn't a problem for most folks.

jonursenbach 16y ago
Didn't Audiogalaxy used to be a P2P service in the early 00s?
- slackerIII 16y ago
  It did. We are some of the same folks, but a totally different service now.
  - rbarooah 16y ago
    It was magnificent back then. I know it's not the same thing, but seeing the logo and installing the new 'helper' gave me a good feeling.
  - bvi 16y ago
    Wow. Nostalgia. I'll have to try this out again, after a decade.
  - blasdel 16y ago
    Wow! I'd been thinking about researching iTunes -> iPhone streaming apps, but now I don't even have to — I know wholeheartedly that anything y'all put out is going to be awesome. It's weird to realize that 'brands' really do have worth. Audiogalaxy 1.0 was the first to really execute on an amazing new UX since the days of IRC Fserves and Napster, and after your legal problems it wasn't till OiNK (and now what.cd) showed up years later that anything nearly as good was available.
  - revorad 16y ago

jbarham 16y ago

How's that North Carolina data center coming along, Apple?! ;)

pkulak 16y ago

Streaming seems a bit silly when I've got 16 gigs sitting empty on my phone. I just want synching. I'll use Pandora if I want to stream. And then I'm not restricted to just my library.

CrazedGeek 16y ago
I have around 60GB of FLACs on my hard drive. At LAME's V0 encoding, that's around 20GB of MP3s. And it's ever increasing. Considering that SDHC has a max of 32GB and SDXC doesn't have much support (much less microSDXC), there's definitely a market for something like this. (Probably very niche, but eh... Amazon seems to be positioning this as kind of a Box.net thing with an emphasis on music storage and playback)
davidedicillo 16y ago
Exactly, or Rdio.
roc 16y ago
I'd be very surprised if this isn't step 1 to a whole-phone-data-sync solution. Media, Data, third party app API -- the whole shebang.
- hyperbovine 16y ago
  I think the hype has raced ahead of the technology here. "Streaming everything" on today's smartphones seems to give you about 2 hrs of battery life, a problem for which there does not appear to be a near-term solution. Moreover, no wireless network in America could support that mode of usage on a large scale, and that will also be true for the foreseeable future. Or so it seems to me -- anyone in the know care to comment?
  - MatthewPhillips 16y ago
    There is a solution, which several companies already implement (Rdio and Spotify, at least). You can sync tracks to your device. I haven't used MOG or Rhapsody so I'm not sure if they do it as well (anyone?) but it seems like the obvious solution. It's the best of both worlds, as you can still stream if you want.

dstein64 16y ago

I tried uploading a file to the cloud drive using Chrome, and then I viewed the file. I copied the URL and pasted it into Firefox, where I was not logged in to amazon.com or their cloud storage. It still loaded the file. If you tried doing this with a gmail message, gmail would prompt you to log in. I am not too familiar with cloud storage. Is this a security issue?

dchest 16y ago
It didn't work for me: SignatureDoesNotMatch The request signature we calculated does not match the signature you provided.
- dstein64 16y ago
  The first time I tried it, I used a PDF file, since it opens in the browser and I could easily access the URL. I just tried again, and I was able to replicate the issue I mentioned, this time using Chrome and Internet Explorer. I tried uploading a different file type (a simple text file) that also loads in the browser, and I was able to replicate with that file as well.

naithemilkman 16y ago

Am I correct to say that this is essentially a web based version of iTunes?

ctdonath 16y ago
Insofar as the iPad is essentially an MP3 player, yes.
- naithemilkman 16y ago
  I don't get your example? You cite one use of the iPad and compared it to my statement. So this means I'm looking at it too narrowly? Elaborate please?
  - ctdonath 16y ago
    You cite one use of Amazon Cloud Drive, which I compared to. Yes, the point was to illustrate you're looking at it too narrowly. To elaborate: Yes, Amazon Cloud Drive can act like iTunes, insofar as you buy tracks from Amazon and can play them thru a browser via the MP3 player. No question Amazon will, like Apple & iTunes, expand this ability by using this "cloud drive" as the focal point for an assortment of applications, now that Amazon is in the e-book, e-movie, e-music, etc. business. I expect the Kindle will start using this in both overt and covert fashion. As Amazon observes what people use their "cloud drive" for, they will provide matching services to enhance and lock-in use thereof. The intent is to make this a disruptive product: its full potential may be unclear, but it's the groundwork for new ways of doing things - and new ways for Amazon to make money.
    - naithemilkman 16y ago
      I guess I was looking at it from a point of view of 'what it is now'. A kind of dropbox+iTunes mashup. You're coming from a 'what it could be' which is at best guess in your own words, unclear. Right now they are using music as a beach head into the market. In future it could be something video or word processing related. Is that what you're trying to say?

jfeldstein2 16y ago

There's an "upload your own mp3's" feature. I think this means I can stop waiting for google music. Except: > You have 5.0 GB of Cloud Drive storage. Upload your entire music collection. I don't think this is going to work...

ajg1977 16y ago

I wonder if they're doing anything clever to reduce storage size. For example - an MP3/AAC song purchased from the same service has a small unique header (e.g. where your iTunes account name is stored) and then identical music data. I imagine the music companies would have a hissy fit and demand streaming payments if that was the case though.

wiredfool 16y ago
Their prices are pretty close to the base level s3 prices, except for transfer.
trotsky 16y ago
In my mind there is no question that they'll be doing de-duplication here. You don't need to rely on a header key, you just take something like a sha1 hash and the size. Services like dropbox do this - even making it so you don't have to upload non-unique files. I have always assumed that all of the non-encrypted remote backup solutions that live on s3 or elsewhere do this too. It's just too easy for a massive storage space savings to not do it.

oskee80 16y ago

What happens if your phone is in a poor reception area, or without internet connection? Then you can't listen to music? Can the app manage which songs you'd also like to have stored locally on the phone? Is this meant to supplement your old ways of syncing music to the phone or replace it?

MichaelEGR 16y ago

Glad to see the comments flood in for this and see it hit #1 on HN so quickly as I was beginning to wonder when it would ship. I was contracted to work on the Amazon MP3 v2.0 app rearchitecting the download architecture and adding cloud drive download support. It was "very interesting" being the only outside contractor / software architect level dev to be hired by A2Z / Amazon to work on core architecture for Amazon MP3. I finished my involvement mid-Feb. I guess I'm just posting to get an account started here on HN as I'm launching some very compelling Android platform / middleware soon called TyphonRT. I've been bootstrapping for years and this recent Amazon MP3 contract has opened up enough runway for me to launch my tech in the coming months. Hopefully I'll have some more time to post in the future too.

baddox 16y ago

Free persistent storage of Amazon digital downloads is the big feature here (to me). I've always thought it was insane how Steam lets you download dozens of gigabytes of video games ad infinitum, yet Apple's and Amazon's music stores require you to backup your digital purchases.

wheels 16y ago

I think there are two really interesting things about this: • This is the first time Amazon has pulled together the two major branches of their business, retail and cloud infrastructure, into something (dare I say it?) synergetic. • Amazon is taking the first steps into the non-retail consumer web, where, if successful, they'll probably give a good scare to a handful of startups as they sweep across segments (and without the Google / Facebook-like startup shopping).

jrockway 16y ago
Not necessarily true, really. When you save your current location on a Kindle, that's handled by an app running on EC2. That's just an example: I am sure pretty much all of Amazon's products use the AWS infrastructure.
- edanm 16y ago
  That's what AWS was developed for originally - running Amazon's products.
  - OstiaAntica 16y ago
    Actually, that is sort of a myth. AWS was built independently of the core Amazon.com platform and specifically for the cloud marketplace.
    - edanm 16y ago
      Interesting. I'm pretty sure I heard that in a talk on AWS given by an Amazon product manager, but I could be wrong (or he could be wrong).
originalgeek 16y ago
Seems like that synergy is SOP for them. How many sales do they make every day?

markgx 16y ago

It would be interesting to see if they expand the scope of Cloud Drive to include Dropbox-like syncing.

dotBen 16y ago

The music aspect of this makes a great headline - and also great case for why the avg joe consumer should want all this cloud storage. But for me the real story here is the ability to store any file or document, and aggressive prices of bigger storage tiers. Dropbox's prices have always seemed unreasonably high to me - and I'm tempted to move all my personal docs over to Amazon and use DropBox just for social sharing.

cma 16y ago
Dropbox's prices are cheap, but only when you consider how many free plans you are subsidizing.

ditojim 16y ago

can you export from their cloud drive?

marklabedz 16y ago
Yes - they provide download capability, however it's at the individual file level only right now.
- ditojim 16y ago
  hopefully they add the ability to bulk export. otherwise, you are semi-locked into this cloud music solution. what happens when a better/cheaper service comes out and you need to move your music?

is_computer_on 16y ago

Would be great if it wasn't illegal to actually upload your music collection on there. I doubt that when you bought your music you got the right to distribute it to a third party which means uploading it onto Amazon's servers would constitute copyright infringement. Songs bought from Amazon probably come with a license that allows you to upload it to Amazon Cloud Player now, but with the music you already own and Music you buy somewhere else you're out of luck.

justanotheratom 16y ago

Just checking, did Ray Ozzie join Amazon?

tybris 16y ago
I'm sure they would love to have him, but they've always been 5 years ahead of whatever Ray Ozzie did.

jasonkester 16y ago

This is actually a little bit worrying as an entrepreneur building things on top of Amazon's Web Services. Amazon has always made a point of not building services on top of its Cloud offerings that directly compete with its users. Cloud Drive sets a precedent for them as the first time they've gone against that principle. There are lots of "low hanging fruit" companies that were built on the understanding that Amazon wasn't interested in implementing that stuff themselves. There's no debating that this will make Amazon a ton of money. It remains to be seen, however, how much it will cost them in developer loyalty and businesses that never get built because "If they did it to JungleDisk, they'll do it to us".

swombat 16y ago
I've said it before, I'll say it again: ( http://swombat.com/2011/2/22/predictability-of-closed-platforms http://swombat.com/2011/2/22/predictability-of-closed-platfo... ) > I would argue that only one thing is entirely predictable about closed platforms: they will do whatever is in the business's interest. When building your business on someone else's platform, you should always assume that if it is in the platform owner's interest, they will shut you down tomorrow with no warning. > So, you need to do two things at the very least: > 1. Ensure your goals and the platform owner's goals are always in harmonious agreement. > 2. Have a backup plan for what happens if your access to the platform is revoked tomorrow. > People seem to keep learning this lesson over and over again... with Facebook, with Twitter, and these days with Apple... And these days, with Amazon?
- jasonkester 16y ago
  Agreed. It's generally a bad idea to build your entire product around a missing feature in the Big Guy's thing. The surprising thing about Amazon, however, is that they've gone out of their way to be the exception to that rule over the last 4 years. JungleDisk was the posterchild for "business that will only last until Amazon incorporates their product as a feature", and yet it continued to survive as Amazon released infrastructure product after infrastructure product. And in the few cases where they did move into a space where somebody had built something, they did it delicately and cooperatively. They really were the Good Guy. I'm hoping that this was just the one space that so obviously needed filling from a Company Strategy perspective that they're making an exception in this case. They've built up a lot of goodwill. It'd be a shame to see it squandered.

jasonkester 16y ago

It's surprising that their player doesn't work in Mobile Safari. On my iPod touch, I can load the page and see my music (though it helpfully tells me I should upgrade to IE), but nothing will play. I notice that they used Flash for the uploader. Surely they wouldn't have used it as the only option for the player. Strange.

jimmydo 16y ago

It doesn't seem like they currently do this, but it would be great if Amazon applied file de-duplication (like Dropbox) to at least music files. If I'm trying to upload a song that Amazon already has on its own servers, it should just use that copy instead of uploading a new copy from my computer.

trotsky 16y ago
MP3.com once got in a ton of hot water for a version of that. They had an integrated ripping system that if they already had the content it just checked the "hash" of the TOC and granted you access to the music. In this way you could borrow a stack of cds and very quickly have access to all of your friends music. I'm not sure if having to upload your music before it's de-duplicated makes a legal difference, but I bet it came into play. I have long thought of the possibility of hacking up the dropbox binary to fake hashes of known music I didn't have and get access instantly Judge Jed S. Rakoff, in the case UMG v. MP3.com, ruled in favor of the record labels against MP3.com and the service on the copyright law provision of "making mechanical copies for commercial use without permission from the copyright owner." Before damage was awarded, MP3.com settled with plaintiff, UMG Recordings, for $53.4 million, in exchange for the latter's permission to use its entire music collection. https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/MP3.com#My.MP3.com https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/MP3.com#My.MP...

dchest 16y ago

"The 5 GB free storage plan is available to all Amazon.com customers, however further upgrades to the storage plan are currently unavailable in the following countries: Austria , Belgium , Bulgaria , Cyprus , Czech Republic , Denmark , Estonia , Finland , France , Germany , Greece , Hungary , Ireland , Italy , Latvia , Lithuania , Luxembourg , Malta , Netherlands , Poland , Portugal , Romania , Slovakia , Slovenia , Spain , Sweden , United Kingdom" Very strange, why is that?

relix 16y ago
I know that in Belgium there is a law where storage which can be used to play pirated media has a surcharge that is used to compensate authors for the possible loss of income because of the potential pirating. Maybe this is a European directive and enforced in all of those countries, and they need to figure out how they're going to approach this law.

JabavuAdams 16y ago

Is using the term "cloud" a branding / marketing mistake? The cloud is generic and multi-vendor. It's a utility. This angle makes sense when talking to developers. OTOH, I could see a lot of users being confused because they put stuff "in the cloud", but they can't get it back (from another vendor i.e. different cloud).

technomancy 16y ago
> The cloud is generic and multi-vendor. It's a utility. This angle makes sense when talking to developers. I just set my dad up with SFTP on a dreamhost account, and he keeps calling it his "cloud storage" account. I think beyond the developer world it's starting to just mean "I don't have to back it up, and I can reach it from anywhere."
- JabavuAdams 16y ago
  Well, my points were: 1) Vendor-centric: It's a missed opportunity for Dreamhost, because your Dad won't think of their brand. 2) User-centric: What happens when he has two "cloud" accounts from different vendors? Will he expect them to work together?

twodayslate 16y ago

They fact that they are going to start backing up the Amazon MP3s is great news. Previously it was impossible to redownload a track once you have already downloaded it. Luckily I did not lose to much music when I got a new computer since I had a personal backup. I would love Amazon Cloud Drive to have desktop integration like Dropbox. Doesn't google have a cloud service now? It just doesn't have a pretty GUI or desktop integration?

jorgeleo 16y ago

I like this... But I would like ti more if there is a webdav address to access the storage from my iPad. I know that there are other solutions, but 5GB free... Does anybody knows how to access Amazon Cloud Drive using Webdab?

frsandstone 16y ago

Do we know the bitrate of the stream?

forgotAgain 16y ago

It's becoming clear that the main competitor for iPad will come from Amazon. Apple will not be beat by a competitor on look and feel. Anyone who wants to compete with them will need to find their own area of strength. Amazon's strength is its years of experience with Amazon Web Services.

ctdonath 16y ago
Recall the article opining that Amazon will be giving away Kindles to Prime members by November 2011 (so far, price drops are on a straight line to $0 then, and when asked Bezos said "oh, you noticed?" and smiled). Maybe they are gearing up for an iPad-type model, laying the groundwork for users buying into disparate parts (streaming video, cloud storage, ebooks, etc.) so when the convergence arrives millions of customers will find themselves already living a ubiquitous Amazon life.

tzury 16y ago

I suspect this 5GB quote is a "fake", since there is no need to actually "copy" a song to the User's virtual drive, rather add a pointer to a copy already available on their platform, that is, if 1M users are buying a popular song, there is no need to clone this song million times, right? Having said that, since there are smart people working on this platform on amazon, I am sure they don't make a physical clone, which raises the question already mentioned above, why limit to 5GB?

MatthewPhillips 16y ago
There is no cap on music purchased from Amazon MP3 (going forward). The cap is on uploaded files, since there is no way to link your uploaded copy of Bad Romance with my uploaded copy of Bad Romance and know that they are the same.
- podperson 16y ago
  Surely there is in fact a way, at least much of the time. In general, I assume encoding a digitized song with a given codec and quality settings is deterministic, so the files have some chance of being identical. Next, if the track were identified using a common process (e.g. CDDB) it might easily be possible to identify them as being identical in origin and then perform some tests to see if they are in fact identical and convert one into a pointer to the other.
  - tzury 16y ago
    hash is the right (and only) way to do this.
    - podperson 16y ago
      My suggested approach assumes hash as a baseline approach (identify actually identical files -- which DropBox is apparently already doing) and goes beyond this (identify files that are identical in source and intent, but different owing to random trivial errors).
- 16y ago

DonnyV 16y ago

Amazon's storage plans are expensive compared to Google's Amazon 5 GB (FREE) 20 GB ($20 / year) 50 GB ($50 / year) 100 GB ($100 / year) 200 GB ($200 / year) 500 GB ($500 / year) 1000 GB ($1000 / year) Google 20 GB ($5.00 USD per year) 80 GB ($20.00 USD per year) 200 GB ($50.00 USD per year) 400 GB ($100.00 USD per year) 1 TB ($256.00 USD per year)

techtalsky 16y ago
Yeah, my collection is 120 GB. I'd love to try this just so I could DJ from my whole collection while at a friend's house (instead of just what's on my phone) but wouldn't pay ~$200 for the privelege.
dfran02 16y ago
I happened to download an album from the Amazon mp3 Android app and they are giving me 20 GB for free for a year. If I don't upgrade (start paying) they'll revert me to the 5GB plan after the year is up.

pilom 16y ago

This page crashes my computer. Not just IE7, my whole computer. Any idea what may be causing it?

misterkeeter 16y ago

It feels like amazon is slowly dismantling the advantages of other content services. It's now competing head to head with one or several other companies within each media space.

deleted 16y ago

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kasperset 16y ago

"All communications are encrypted using HTTPS, so that your data can pass securely over the Internet". This means that data is "stored without" encryption.

mone 16y ago

Am I missing something or is Amazon (Cloud Drive) not giving the ability to import songs purchased from Amazon prior to this date??

IgorPartola 16y ago

And yet another service that does not support Ubuntu... Ubuntu One just might get my money after all.

jongraehl 16y ago

No drag and drop (in Chrome). Slow and clumsy. Dropbox has a far better user experience (but more expensive storage).

getpost 16y ago

The OS X uploader requires installation of Adobe AIR. Adobe bloatware? Another piece of software checking for updates? Another piece of software that needs to be updated? No thank you. I'm all for getting a product out the door, but is a native OS X app that much trouble for an organization like Amazon? Does this bother anyone else, or is it just me?