Amazon Launches Online Media Storage Service, Amazon Cloud Drive

SAN FRANCISCO — Amazon.com Inc. wants to be more than a destination for shopping online: It also dreams of being a place where you can store your music, photos and videos and access them any time, from any computer.

The online retailer launched two offerings late Monday: Amazon Cloud Drive and Amazon Cloud Player. The first lets you upload and store files such as music, videos and photos on Amazon's servers, which you can get to from a Web browser on a Mac or PC. The second lets you play songs you've uploaded on your computer or on a smartphone that runs Google's Android operating software. The "cloud" in the services' names refers to the practice of storing content online and streaming it to a computer over the Internet

Google Inc. and Apple Inc. also are believed to be working on similar services to allow consumers to store and access music and other content when away from their home computer.

While Amazon will charge for the Cloud Drive service, it's offering anyone with an Amazon account 5 gigabytes of free storage. That's less space than you'd get on the smallest iPod Touch, but it's a move that's likely to woo plenty of users who might later decide to pay for more storage space.

The Seattle-based company, which already runs an online storage service for companies called Amazon S3, decided to roll out a consumer cloud service to make it easier for customers to access digital content no matter where they are, Amazon music director Craig Pape said.

The offerings could also benefit Amazon's bottom line: The company realized customers were hesitant to purchase music digitally at work because they didn't want them tied to their office computer, Pape said, so Cloud Drive and Cloud Player may drive more impulse music shopping.

"At the end of the day we're trying to delight customers, but we're trying to sell more music, too," he said.

The company also wants to sell cloud storage. If your tunes and videos take up more space than the 5 GB Amazon is giving out, you can pay an annual storage fee to use Cloud Drive: The use of 20 GB of storage, for example, will cost $20 (and this includes the 5 free GB). For an undisclosed period of time, however, Amazon is offering 20 GB of free storage to those who buy a digital album from its Amazon MP3 store.

Documents or videos you've uploaded to Cloud Drive will open with programs on the computer you're using, Pape said, while songs in the standard digital formats – MP3 or AAC – will be playable through the Web-based Cloud Player.

The player offers simple controls – you can play, pause or skip tracks, or build your own playlists. For users who want to listen while on the go, an updated version of the Amazon MP3 digital music-buying app will include Cloud Player, letting users play music they've stored with Amazon's service on their cell phone as well as tunes that are already on their handsets.

Comments

[Indigo1941]

02:53 PM on 03/30/2011

I might use that. Then again, privacy issues are important. How easily can it be hacked? Does Amazondotcom run spy programs through the Cloud to find key words from Homeland Security or the Heimatsicherheit Gesellshaft or even Blackstone aka its latest alias?

[Morgantheaxe]

01:14 PM on 03/30/2011

*genre

[Morgantheaxe]

01:14 PM on 03/30/2011

Is it me or is the next generation of software in the "Go to My Pc" genra going to bury the entire cloud concept? A little upgrade in the mobile access software market and why would you need the cloud at all?

[John Crane]

07:03 AM on 03/30/2011

I have 176 Gig of Music. For $100, I could store 100 Gig, so 176 would cost even more. Plus, I would have to convert all my non-mp3 files to mp3. For $100 I would buy another external storage device on another mp3 player every year. This is not a good deal for me. I'm not afraid of losing my music WHEN (not if) the cloud goes down, because I already have 5 backups, so it's a bad deal for something I have no use for.

[zooperman]

11:55 PM on 03/29/2011

The cloud is a great idea - until the cloud computers get hacked or a serious bug in the software wipes out files. Then - too bad, so sad. All your music, pictures and files are gone. And it WILL happen.

[Morgantheaxe]

12:59 PM on 03/30/2011

Actually you have a point but it's not my main concern. Im tracked enough as it is. Do I really need someone with a summary of what Im watching and listening to? Really? It's also a bit like paying someone else to refridgerate your food. How long before you have to start paying more to get your Apple back??? (Yeh Ima fanboi). It's your Apple but hey they have it. You want it back you pay what they want you to pay. With so many moves toward throttling and the like do you really think they are going to pass on the ability to blackmail you for your own data back?

[mezcal]

09:34 PM on 03/29/2011

Works fine.
Upon further review of the TOS though I've already emailed them and asked them to rescind my agreement and remove the service from my account.

To wit:

"5.2 Our Right to Access Your Files. You give us the right to access, retain, use and disclose your account information and Your Files: to provide you with technical support and address technical issues; to investigate compliance with the terms of this Agreement, enforce the terms of this Agreement and protect the Service and its users from fraud or security threats; or as we determine is necessary to provide the Service or comply with applicable law."

If you're just going to backup your pictures or throw a few songs on it, fine.
But anybody uploading proprietary business data or personal financial information (like Quicken backups) under that agreement is asking for it.

[Morgantheaxe]

01:01 PM on 03/30/2011

Amen.

[Mitch Craft]

08:28 PM on 03/29/2011

I thought my Rocko's Modern Life was comin in a tad crappy.

[2crudedudes]

05:57 PM on 03/29/2011

Meh, after the whole WikiLeaks deal, I'd be stupid to store anything on an Amazon server.

[drp103]

05:18 PM on 03/29/2011

Just in case, I'm gonna keep my CDs

[aphextwin07]

04:24 PM on 03/29/2011

This idea is fail in general, if a company as big as Google can so easily lose thousands of customers' data, I'd be willing to wager that your data would not be safe anywhere in the cloud. Maybe as a backup, but certainly not for primary storage.

[loudneighbor]

02:57 PM on 03/29/2011

I can't really see the usefulness of this. I have music on my droid phone, I have an ipod, I have itunes on all my computers. . .I just don't get it.

[Flaxseed]

03:04 PM on 03/29/2011

And I bet each library you have is different from the other.

If you store everything in a cloud, you can access one library from any device.

You might not like the idea, but this is how the computers will be, so you better get used to it.

[zooperman]

11:57 PM on 03/29/2011

This is NOT how computers will be. The "cloud" is a terrible idea.

[wilray]

04:20 PM on 03/29/2011

I don't use iTunes. However, I think the part that you aren't getting is that Amazon's cloud drive and cloud player means there is no need to sync anything. Your media is available everywhere at once. Currently, people won't even purchase music at work because they need to be near the computer where they are going to download the file. With Amazon cloud storage, that's not a problem. You can buy your media anywhere, access it from everywhere, and play it everywhere. Access to you music is no longer device specific. You wouldn't have to worry about losing the music on a particular device and having to go through the hassle of replacing it or resynching it. DRM would no longer be an issue. Yo would not be limited on how many devices could play your music.

[loudneighbor]

07:47 PM on 03/29/2011

Ok, I hadn't thought about having an online backup, and no DRM licensing problems would be nice. Still, an ipod or a phone won't suffer from network slowness/glitches. Those are probably rare with a good network, but from a playability/listen-ability standpoint stand alone devices do what they do well.

Flax - Thanks for the heads up on the future of computing.

[Morgantheaxe]

01:06 PM on 03/30/2011

Sounds like an IBM mainframe from the 80's to me. Ill keep my data thanks. I don't have to pay my hard drive rent.

[leorangerie]

12:14 PM on 03/29/2011

Bezos is coming after Apple, and the competition for the 'cloud' is a good thing.

[GeorgieMark]

01:07 PM on 03/29/2011

I don't think so, the only products that overlap (to a point) is the Kindle and the ipad and even there they only compete in terms of hardware (again by not so much), the kindle suite is available on the ipad as well.

In terms of cloud computing Amazon has been at the forefront of the industry whereas Apple is at a bare 0. Sure Apple dominates at the digital downloads arena but that's not cloud computing.

Amazon is going after Microsoft and Google who have extremely good corporate and client cloud services.

[leorangerie]

01:34 PM on 03/29/2011

Isn't 'mobile me' Apple's cloud platform, that they hope to expand? Or maybe I don't understand the technology.

[rdclark]

01:57 PM on 03/29/2011

Mark my words, there will be an Amazon "Prime Tablet" running Android 3 in the next six months. They've rolled out the reading, music, video streaming, App Store, and cloud storage functionality already. They could overwhelm the tablet market if the price is right.

[rdclark]

11:57 AM on 03/29/2011

Obviously for those who've been using Skydrive, Dropbox, etc all along, this is nothing new. But Amazon is clearly moving cloud storage to the next level of popular acceptance by integrating music streaming and their MP3 store.

I'm sure that the next thing will be an Android "Amazon Prime Tablet" that integrates cloud storage, music, video streaming using Prime, their new App Store and their Kindle Store. This genius marketing, and could be the real challenger to Apple. All the parts are there.

[GeorgieMark]

11:55 AM on 03/29/2011

Microsoft has had this service for the past 4 years it is free of charge and it comes with a whopping 25GB of cloud storage.

www.skydrive.com

but as we know all too well, Microsoft is the company we love to hate, so anything decent they offer usually goes unnoticed.

[JasonMcl]

12:08 PM on 03/30/2011

That is a fantastic service and I honestly didn't really know it existed.

Can you tell me anything more about it?

[GeorgieMark]

01:54 PM on 03/30/2011

There is an upload limit of 50 MB per file. You can do batch uploads via all browsers but there's a 5 file limit per upload session, if you have IE7 (or newer) there is a tool you can download that overrides the limitation.

The service also allows batch downloads in .zip format.

You can organise your files into folders (much like you would do on a pc) and set folder permissions (using email addresses) making it ideal for file sharing and collaborative work. There is also an option for allowing people to edit your files without downloading (e.g. a document opens within the browser for editing). It is integrated with very many MS products (messenger, movie maker, Office 10 ).

Office Files are viewable on all mobile platforms but online editing uploading and downloading is not supported yet (I think they've done it on WP7 but don't take my word for it). Photos videos and music files you can download on your phone or tablet over the air (I've tested it on Android), except (surprise surprise) iOS devices that don't allow any downloads via their browsers (again tested using an ipod touch by yours truly).

It is a superb service and much to Microsoft's credit (and unlike let's say mobile me) it doesn't force you to open a separate email account to get it, you can access it across platforms and it is extremely simple to use. The only flaw is that 50mb per file limit.

[Morgantheaxe]

11:53 AM on 03/29/2011

I didn't want this when IBM tried to sell it in the 80's. I didn't want this when oracle tried to sell it in the 90's. I don't want it now when Microsoft and amazon are selling it now. There will be a cost. Nobody "gives" things away. There will be adds or a hidden cost somewhere. I want my music, video, and data on my hard drive. I'm not handing it over so someone can back charge me for it later.

[JasonMcl]

12:13 PM on 03/30/2011

The service only seems to cost you when you go above 25 gigs.

The clear advantage here, is that it safeguards your content purchases automatically, so you can download them to all your computers and devices without having to worry about losing them permanently. I know iTunes allows a content restore but you have to go through some red tape to get it done and it is ultimately up to them.

This is definitely a huge step up for Amazon and hopefully they will expand the service to include video at a later date.

[Morgantheaxe]

12:46 PM on 03/30/2011

I didn't want IBM's mainframes, I didn't want Oracles "portal" computers, and I do NOT want Cloud. They ALL offered the exact same things you just mentioned and I will not hand over my data, music, and or videos to someone else for storage. They are in my business enough and as far as the free version it's like every other free version offered of every other technology on the web. It's not really free. It's supported by adds and or it leads to a subscription service later. You like this go ahead. I am not touching it. Ill keep my data thanks.