Google Music All Access

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Google held its IO conference recently. They had many new announcements, but the one that most of its consumers will likely notice is the expansion of their Google Play Music service.

Google developed their Google Play as a way to consolidate their movie, book, music and app stores together. Now android users had one place to go for all their media. You could argue this was a way to make an android “itunes” brand.

Up until recently Google Music worked as a music storage locker. You could buy music from Google, just like any traditional music store – iTunes or Amazon. However, Google focused on their web services strength as a differentiator. They allowed users to store 20,000 songs for free on their servers. And not just music purchased at Google, but any MP3s on your computer could be uploaded to Google.

Users could access this music from almost any web browser on almost any device. This comes with a caveat in that the experience on iOS devices was sub par, and might not work on Windows Phones at all. But computer browsers worked perfectly. Also, Google released a dedicated music app for their Android devices which allowed users to stream, but also save files to their phones if they were going to be away from a data connection for a while.

At this year’s IO Google announced a new feature to Google Music, called “All Access”. As the name implies, this is an expansion to allow users a more traditional on-demand streaming service, like those offered by Spotify or Rdio. Now users can search for songs that they don’t have an MP3 copy of, and stream it. Instead of buying the song for .99c, you pay a monthly fee and can listen to an unlimited amount of music.

As I alluded to above, other competing services already exist which provide this same function. How does Google’s offering compare? I will compare to Spotify simply because it is the best-known and most widely used competitor – arguably largely due to its tie in with Facebook.

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Apple and Web Services

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As good as Apple has been at making amazing hardware and stable well performing software, they have never done web services well.

This is why many people download chrome, use gmail, and many other google services on their apple devices. In comparison, Apple’s iCloud is a pale competitor. Despite all promises, many developers have abandoned their services for Amazon’s AWS or even Microsoft’s Azure.

Consumers don’t fare much better. Can you name one person giving out a .icloud or .me email address? And this is not Apple’s first crack. iCloud was a re-launch after MobileMe failed miserably, something Steve Jobs even acknowledged.

Shouldn’t Apple be better at this? One could argue that this is not their focus – they make Hardware and the software that runs on it. However, I would argue one critical trend should have made the light bulb go off and tell them they needed to focus on this.

Pre-iPod, Apple was an also-ran. Barely registering, they ceded 90% of PC sales to Windows. The reasons for this are many, but it hard to convince people to use your system without software applications. Quite simply, when 90% of the world used Windows, it was hard to make a piece of software for Apple. You got 10% of the world, and how many of those would actually need and buy your product? Grim.

However, the web changed much of that. Now many things run right in your browser. think about what you do on your computer all day. You scan social networks, you send emails, you read news, you listen to music. All of this can and is largely done in a web browser – accessible by anyone, independent of what type of computer they use. This was the great equalizer. No longer were you missing a critical feature because you owned an Apple.

So, why didn’t Apple see this trend and understand that more and more services would be provided online? Is it going to come back to bite them again? Google already makes cheap (and expensive) computers that are little more than just a browser in a box.

You could argue Apple is selling similar simple devices with their tablets, but they still lack the services side of the equation, seeming to prefer to let others handle that. I don’t think that serves their best interest in the long run.

How Old Media Is Destroying Its Value

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The one thing that Old Media can hold over most New Media is credentials. Old Media is known to double check sources and has to be accountable. They don’t print rumors, they have sources that they have to verify. The credibility of a newspaper or newspaper is considered its greatest asset.

Contrast that with most New Media. There the goal is to post first, quickly, in order to get that exclusive break that brings a ton of “hits” or “views”. Make a name for yourself. Get the clicks. Often, this means that blogs go to “print” before vetting stories. Because of the nature of the medium, posts can be deleted, or at worst buried under the next scandalous headline.

But Old Media is falling for this trap again. They are focusing on ratings and getting scoops before the other network. Or, they are feeling the heat of online media and trying to compete by playing by their rules. This is a foolish move. They need to play to their strengths and be the stalwart trustworthy source.

Sure, maybe some blog reports something, but until News Network confirms – it’s not real. That should be the goal.

Instead we get the scenario where CNN rushes to report an “exclusive” which is only solely theirs because they are reporting falsehoods.

Predicting The End of Patent Wars

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We all love a bit of “I told you so!”, even more when its not something criticizing someone else, but when you make a prediction that turns out to be right.

I remember when I was in my Mom’s car as a pre-teen driving home from the beach. We had the radio on, but with the windows down the wind drowned out the music. So we would turn it up. When we stopped at a light, the music was way too loud. I remember thinking “Someone should invent a way to have the radio adjust for this.” A few years later the new car we bought had a feature where the radio adjusted to your road speed and got louder or quieter. That kind of validation is a great feeling.

Back in February I pondered why there isn’t some sort of Patent insurance program where small startups could buy into some sort of protection against so called “Non Practicing Entities”.

While thinking about this, I thought of what I think to be a unique solution. What about some sort of patent litigation insurance. We spread risk out for many things, why not this. You could pay a certain amount every year, and if someone claims you are infringing their patent, the funds could be used to pay for your defense.

The real trick to why I think this would work is that the Patent Trolls don’t really want to go to trial. They are hoping you settle. Trials are expensive, which is against their purpose, and second, if they lose they lose their entire reason for being. They do not actually want their patent to go in front of a jury. If they know you won’t blink and will make them actually prove 1) their patent is valid and 2) you infringe it, they might just move along and not mess with you.

Low and behold, I recently ran across a new startup that sounds very familiar!

The startup plans to protect its members with a variety of strategies, one of which will be to use its smaller members as an early warning system for when patent trolls look to purchase their technology or threaten them with litigation.

Members will have the ability to protect one another against these trolls, or even purchase technology from a fellow member before a troll does. The company is also asking the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office to re-examine the patents currently in possession of patent trolls, which may lead to an increased number of patents being declared invalid.

I can feel the sun on my face and wind blowing as I smile in a weird satisfaction.