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Google Play Music – free, ad-supported radio

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Re: Google Play Music – free, ad-supported radio

#171

Post by viraptor »

chrisper wrote: post #49
Mahn wrote: post #22

I've been considering subscribing to a music service lately, but there are so many nowadays that I have honestly no idea how to decide. For those of you with experience in this area, what criteria would you recommend? what should I look for, other than the music itself?

If you have iOS, then wait 7 more days until Apple Music is coming out. My Spotify premium thing expired after 1 year now, so I have tried out all music services out there this month. My conclusion is that if Apple Music does not provide the integration I am seeking for (since I have an iPhone), I will just go back to Spotify. I am currently on the Google Play Music trial. It is pretty good, but I do not like the "An…

> "Android" app on my iPhone

How can you tell it's an "Android" app?

Re: Google Play Music – free, ad-supported radio

#173

Post by sondh »

rsanheim wrote: post #25
mrinterweb wrote: post #21

My main issue with Google Play Music is that they don't have a desktop app. I wouldn't even care if their desktop app was a wrapper around their HTML player. I just want keyboard music controls from my desktop and the ability to Cmd+Tab to the music app instead of hunting down the browser tab. Without a desktop app, using Google Play Music is disruptive to my workflow.

Have you looked at Radiant Player? http://www.sajidanwar.me/radiant-player-mac/

Very nice app but I uninstalled after awhile because I want to get rid of Adobe Flash Player. It (the Adobe software, not Radiant Player) kept asking me to update itself...

Re: Google Play Music – free, ad-supported radio

#174

Post by b3b0p »

cheald wrote: post #116
spankalee wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm biased because I work for Google and dogfood Play Music, but for me it's a great combination of: * A free music locker you can upload your songs to * iTunes-like store, with non-DRM'ed files and offline support * Spotify-like subscription service, with offline support * Pandora-like radio stations, with the addition of "I'm Feeling Lucky" radio that adapts to your listening habits, and offline support :) * Songza…

> What it lacks is Spotify-like social features: profiles, activity, etc. Please never add this. I don't want my radio to be a social network. The "profiles and activity" is explicitly why I don't use Spotify.

I agree with you on this. This is the reason I left Spotify. I pay to conveniently access quality music anytime, anywhere.

The social aspect doesn't make much sense with the plethora of streaming music service options available it seems anyway. We have services like Twitter and Facebook and Reddit for social and we have Google Music, Beats, Rdio, Spotify, and others for Music. My experience is that all my friends are each using their own music service, so unless everyone was using the same one it doesn't seem to make sense for the use case of sharing playlists or new music with friends.

Re: Google Play Music – free, ad-supported radio

#175

Post by aiiane »

neves wrote: post #51

My Google play killer feature happened other day and wasn't even announced. They increased the amount of music you can store from 20.000 to 50.000. I have a very large collection of independent Brazilian music. You can't find these kind of music in any streaming service. Now I can have a cloud backup of all my music for free! And I also can here it anywhere. I even bought a new CD reader and resumed to rip my music c…

https://play.google.com/store/music/category/WORLD - it's a decent start, and it'll almost certainly continue to get larger.

Re: Google Play Music – free, ad-supported radio

#176

Post by DiabloD3 »

domdip wrote: post #65
Someone1234 wrote: post #48

This is a nice additional option, but I won't be cancelling my subscription. I hate ads. What I want to see from Google Play Music (aside from a name change) is: - Keep improving music discoverability. It has become better, but could be further improved. - Family plan. I want to pay $15/month and give it to my wife and kid. - Fix the strange YouTube bug, where if I hit pause on Play Music, and then start a YouTube vi…

Yeah "Google Play Music All Access Unlimited" is a truly horrible product name (not to mention un-Googleable if you mix up even one of the words).

For a company that understands Google searchability very well (since they wrote the search engine itself), this has a certain kind of irony.

Re: Google Play Music – free, ad-supported radio

#177

Post by ericdykstra »

lintroller wrote: post #103
ericdykstra wrote: post #92

I will never pay for one of these music streaming services. You would think in a time when basic necessities are extremely cheap for a significant portion of the world population, people would be more willing to spend money on art. But instead, the vast majority would rather get something for free than pay for it. And the people who pay the $10/month for the convenience of Spotify or Google Play Music or Apple's musi…

By this same thought process, you shouldn't purchase music via iTunes because Apple takes their chunk first, then the music label gets their share. The artist is again left with "only pennies". Perhaps you are more upset with music labels and their part in the process rather than companies like Spotify and Google Play Music who are simply trying to meet the demands of the modern consumer.

I don't purchase music from iTunes. I give money directly to artists in any way I can. Whether it's merch, handing money over for a CD directly, buying them a drink, whatever.

Here's something to try. Think about some songs or some album you go back to over and over. Think about the way the music makes you feel, if it lifts your mood, lets you concentrate, or in any way improves your day. How grateful are you for that great 4 minute track? Or for the 50 minute album you played at twice per week last summer?

Did each listen of that song bring you 5 cents worth of joy? Or maybe even just 2 cents? If you have a last.fm account, you can look at your plays and total it up. I have well over 5000 plays for my most listened-to artist. The next time I see them, I can give them $100 in return for nothing, and just say "thank you" for making great music and encourage them to make more.

It's not about these companies being evil, or the business model being wrong. It's that very rarely does anyone consider the people behind the works that they listen to every day, even if that music has some personal importance or sentimentality. The reality is that those people who put out your favorite album are probably working part time jobs just to keep producing music, even if they have enough notoriety to be invited to international music festivals, or are even lucky enough to have a song licensed for a tv show or commercial.

Musicians will continue to make music out of passion, even if they have no hope or even aspiration of commercial success. Any bit of encouragement and support you can give will give them extra motivation to keep producing music, which is a benefit to you, as a fan of what they do, and also a benefit to other fans.

I'm probably just rambling to a wall here, but if you're someone who has their day slightly improved by music, take some time to consider if you want to be one of the few who supports the people who make your life better. Because they certainly aren't being supported by the services that you're using to listen to them.

Re: Google Play Music – free, ad-supported radio

#178

Post by snarf »

Aldo_MX wrote: post #119
bluehazed wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How? It's 320kbps.

Bitrate doesn't necessarily correlate with audio quality, you can even perceive noise or a drop of quality in the audio of the less popular songs. I'm seriously thinking that Google just licensed the audio they're streaming, but they didn't even care about getting proper audio files and they're simply streaming the audio their users uploaded.

I had the same observation about Google Play Music Radio's audio quality and came on here searching for the bit rate and codec thinking it must be lower for the free radio product in order to segment and further differentiate the paid tier (many services like Spotify, Rdio, and Pandora do this). I'm using an external DAC+headphone amp. Also, note that the codec matters. AAC is supposedly twice as efficient as MP3. iTunes Radio, which streams at 256kbps AAC, sounds better to me.

Re: Google Play Music – free, ad-supported radio

#179

Post by AlfaWolph »

_1 wrote: post #67
Someone1234 wrote: post #48

This is a nice additional option, but I won't be cancelling my subscription. I hate ads. What I want to see from Google Play Music (aside from a name change) is: - Keep improving music discoverability. It has become better, but could be further improved. - Family plan. I want to pay $15/month and give it to my wife and kid. - Fix the strange YouTube bug, where if I hit pause on Play Music, and then start a YouTube vi…

> - Family plan. I want to pay $15/month and give it to my wife and kid. This is what's stopping me from paying for it. I already pay for Pandora, and my wife and I are able to share that. Sharing an entire google account isn't going to happen.

Linking Google accounts might but you're right it has high potential to get "Netflixed" with people sharing the service amongst their friends.

Re: Google Play Music – free, ad-supported radio

#180

Post by AlfaWolph »

spankalee wrote: post #75
Someone1234 wrote: post #48

This is a nice additional option, but I won't be cancelling my subscription. I hate ads. What I want to see from Google Play Music (aside from a name change) is: - Keep improving music discoverability. It has become better, but could be further improved. - Family plan. I want to pay $15/month and give it to my wife and kid. - Fix the strange YouTube bug, where if I hit pause on Play Music, and then start a YouTube vi…

A family plan is so sorely needed, even more so on other the Play properties. I don't buy Play books because I can't share them. TV shows are a pain because we have to watch every episode together.

In addition, you can't gift things. There's been several occasions I've wanted to gift apps and games to people I know.
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