Hands On with Google Music Beta
Written by Alan Monday, 27 June 2011 07:00
Not long ago Google made waves by announcing their latest service – Google Music. It was released in beta form and is currently only available by invitation. You add you name to the waiting list by visiting the website.
So, what exactly is Google Music? It’s cloud storage for you music collection that, in turn, makes all of your songs available from anywhere, including PC’s and Android devices. The storage limit is, uniquely, not a files size, but a song quantity – 20,000 songs. That is a LOT of storage. To give you an idea of how much that is, let me tell you that my music collection is approximately 90 GB, with most songs encoded at 320 KB, and that came out to just over 10,000 songs (11,164 to be exact). In other words, Google Music if offering enough free storage for almost everyone. There is no word of any paid extra storage, but I can’t imagine who would even need it.
The first step, of course, is to sign up and then sit back and wait for your invitation. It will likely take at least 2 weeks, so be patient.
Once you have received your invitation, and clicked the “Get Started” link, then here is what you can expect.
You will be prompted to choose genres of music that fit your taste and Google will use this to give you occasional free songs. This is a no-brainer – pick everything your are remotely interested in!
Next you will be asked if you would like to install the Google Music Manager. You will need this, at least on your primary computer. This is what Google will use to scan and upload your music to the cloud. It won’t be necessary on secondary PC’s, unless you have music on them that you want to add to your cloud collection.
You will now need to log into your Google account. You have to have a Google account in order to use the Google Music service. That should be a problem since most people likely already have one thanks to their countless other services.
Now, choose the location of your music. Google Music is compatible with iTunes and Windows Media Player. You can also choose your default My Music folder, or browse for a folder anywhere on your computer or network.
Once you choose the location, Google Music will scan it for all of the music contained there.
Once it has scanned the folder, the music manager will take up residence in your system tray. From there, you can right-click it to choose froma small context menu. You can check the upload progress of your collection, access the music via the computer’s default web browser, or change the settings.
Open the system tray icon and you get a few simple options such as the ability to add, remove, or change monitored folders and to change the upload behavior of Google Music Manager.
Now you are officially up and running with Google Music Beta. Sit back and enjoy your tunes from and computer in any location, or install the Android app on your phone or tablet. More improvements are sure to come along.
Related posts:
- Integrate Google Music with Chrome
- Hands On with Microsoft Office 365 Beta
- Find Music You Heard On TV
- Stream And Download Free Music At Riptune
- Use MusicBrainz To Clean Up Your Music Library
