Rik's Ramblings

Saturday, November 17, 2012

Google Play Music - Just not Compelling

At one of those many tech talk events I attend I was talking to a guy from Google. After much discussion on various shite, one thing he asked me, rather perplexed was:
"So how come you don't use Google Play Music? You seem to use every other google service".

My initial tought was:
"Well it might help if I'd heard of it! What kind of silly name is 'Google Play Music', and what the f does it do?"

I actually wasn't sure what it was. I made the assumption it was an MP3 store, but that was a guess. I actually said, perhaps rather embarrasingly to move on from the subject.
"Oh, I just use Pandora for all my music needs, but I promise to give it a try when I get home. I'll even buy a song.".

OK, it was a bluff! But I did give it a try when I got home. I didn't bother to buy a song though.

Actually a couple of things came to mind later that I wish I'd told him.

Change the name
While Google Play Music has all the nouns and verbs necessary to clearly describe the service, it ain't exactly catchy.

Maybe call it YouTunes.

Integrate it to the Listen app on Android
Now Listen is something I do use. Maybe if I could get to Google Play from that I would have discovered it by now.

Local content via DLNA
I might use a google music player app to playback local content if it could integrate with my DLNA server at home.

You could then be smart and cache some of my home content onto the device or even into your cloud, so the tunes would be accessible from any of my devices, at home and even on the road.

Naturally, this would also give you the benefit of knowing what music I listen to, and you could more effectively sell me new tunes.

Upload via Barcode
Allow me to upload all my existing CDs to your massive cloud infrastructure by simply scanning the bar code on the back of the jewel case.

For those of us who still have lots of CDs, it would be a big incentive to use your service if all my existing CDs were available there. What I suggest is an Android app that uses the camera to scan the barcodes off CD cases. This would save me ripping CDs and allow you to more effectively sell me new tunes.


I could have sent the guy an email to suggest this to him, but let's face it, the outcome would he either (a) he'd ignore me as I don't work for Google, so I don't know anything, or (b) he'd steel the ideas, take the credit for them and probably patent them.


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