Comments on: Ubuntu One Music Store: A Real Business?

By: Antonio Roberts

Antonio Roberts — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 10:37:35 +0000

I’d like to see how well it integrates into services like Jamendo or Magnatune and whether external software (like Songbird and Rhythmbox) can make use of this new service

By: faizi

faizi — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 03:25:06 +0000

Itunes is for me also the only windows software I miss (that I can’t ‘wine’). It’s the only ‘deal-breaker’ that keeps me from removing my windows partition. I like my IPod- that’s one thing, but I also really like the ITunes interface so much that it’s hard for me to replace it even if I had a different media/mp3 device. My movies, pod-casts, ‘audible’ and other audio books etc are so easily, intuitively and centrally mannaged in an interface that is easy to comprehend. I may end up divorcing it though. I do hate booting into to windows.

By: 1916home.net

1916home.net — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 23:53:09 +0000

In regards to UbuntuOne offering some sort of “Exclusive mainstream entertainment content”… this could easily be achieved by bettering Rhythmbox and by making it cross platform.

By: Jef Spaleta

Jef Spaleta — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 17:46:01 +0000

aikiwolfie:

What’s obvious or insanely useful about linking a music service to UbuntuOne? What about a music store fits in with the UbuntuOne service? Why would a user need to or want to register and login to UbuntuOne to buy music versus just using a web browser or using a rhythmbox plugin tied directed to a retailer? There’s something missing…some tie-in which makes having an UbuntuOne account an obvious compelling as part of the interaction. What problem does an UbuntuOne backed music service solve?

My best guess, without any additional information. is that the UbuntuOne music store will tie into using the UbuntuOne storage area…so as you buy music the purchases are organized in your UbuntuOne storage area automatically and then the default music players in Ubuntu are configured to pull songs from the cloud. That’s the sort of tie-in that would provide an ease-of-use value-add and help persuade customers to pay for UbuntuOne subscription fees to have enough space to hold the music. I could even imagine a couple of ways to tie the music service to UbuntuOne subscription fees so strongly that it made a UbuntuOne subscriptions a compelling price point bundle for OEM purchases. The only thing missing in that scheme is cross-platform capability so the same cloud stored music purchases would be available on windows and macs.

-jef

By: aikiwolfie

aikiwolfie — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 17:05:24 +0000

Canonical need to pull this off. They need to make Ubuntu insanely useful to all kinds of people. And it needs to be obvious.

By: Josh

Josh — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 16:29:46 +0000

@twrock: iTunes is only bloated on Windows and that’s largely because of the way Windows handles concurrency which, in short, is poorly. iTunes is designed for Unix, where processes are cheap. iTunes works beautifully on Macs.

iTunes really is a great application. Any piece of software can play music, but iTunes really shines when put under a heavy load that combines shopping with managing large media libraries and media player management. It does have its warts but it is the best application I have found for the task.

After struggling with competing media players, using an iPod with iTunes was the first time I was just blown away by how simple and elegant everything was. It may be closed source, but Apple products give me the freedom to think about other stuff. Yeah, that kind of freedom is important too.

By: Josh

Josh — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 16:13:58 +0000

Even if Canonical can provide an alternate avenue for delivering music, it isn’t even worthy of a yawn. iTunes isn’t just a great platform for managing massive libraries of music and other media, it also does something much more important: iPod sync and management. iPod support is critical. My iPod touch does not work under Linux with any player including Rhythmbox, Exaile, and Amarok. And I refuse to spend hours trying to do something as simple as sync up music and podcasts, so don’t bother pointing me to long wiki pages of half-assed technical documentation. I’m lazy and don’t have a lot of free time. If Canonical can make my iPod work without me having to do anything, then I’d be more than willing to throw some money their way. I wish they would stop being afraid of charging people for good solutions. I would gladly pay for stuff that works.

By: twrock

twrock — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 14:11:40 +0000

If Ubuntu can deliver a good music store experience, sure, I’ll buy from them to help support their hard work. But right now I don’t feel a great need with the combination of Amazon MP3 downloads and Rhythmbox for a music player.

(And I’ve never understood why on earth would someone actually choose to use the iTunes bloatware and support one of the most closed companies in the business.)

By: Johannes

Johannes — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 14:11:25 +0000

It’s in the interest of all users that Canonical makes money – Ubuntu will get better, remain free, and hopefully contribute back to GNU/Linux.

By: Michael

Michael — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 12:40:15 +0000

Ubuntu One already uses Amazon’s S3 so perhaps that’s where the “Ubuntu One” branding comes in, I think this branding implies an underlying major collaboration between Canonical and Amazon.
Now perhaps if Nokia got in on the action with Maemo and the N9xx series we could see some a real force for competition against the Ipod/Itunes domination.