Someone recently asked me why I wrote so much about Apple, Facebook and Google. The reason is simple: These are the three most innovative companies (not necessarily in order of merit) in the tech landscape today.

There’s one other company that's very innovative although I don’t use it as frequently as the three mentioned, which is also why I don’t write about it as much - though I did write about it last week. I’m talking about Amazon.com that’s been really proactive lately.

Amazon has evolved from its simple beginnings as an online book store into being an e-commerce giant that sells everything but the kitchen sink. Wait a second, it does sell kitchen sinks. That’s how amazing it is!

Not many people realize this but Amazon is today the second biggest online music retailer, behind Apple which had first mover advantage and which has a whole eco-system supporting its music endeavours. However, it was Amazon that first did away with digital rights management for the songs it sold. Apple eventually followed suit.

Amazon has taken the lead again in another area relating to music: The digital locker concept. Basically, an online storage facility where users can store and playback their music anywhere there’s Internet access.

This is not a new concept. The first big attempt to do this, My.MP3.com, got sued by major record labels about a decade ago. What My.MP3.com did was upload a whole bunch of music onto its servers and if you could prove that you had already bought the music by letting your CDs be scanned, you could then access those songs online.

The record labels successfully sued My.MP3.com for copyright infringement for it had uploaded music onto its servers without paying for it.

Digital locker service

Amazon is doing it differently. With its new digital locker service - called Cloud Drive - it is requiring users to upload their own music onto its servers. There is no copyright infringement because users are uploading their own music. It’s no different, in principle, from users uploading the music to their own hard drives.

NONEOnce uploaded, users can listen to their collection from any any Internet-connected computer with a Web browser as well as Android smartphones and tablets.

Sorry, it won't work on iPhones and iPads. No reason was given for this but the fact that Amazon is a director competitor with Apple in the music business probably is a key cause.

Amazon provides 5Gb of free online storage. If users want more they can buy it at US$1 per Gb per year. Or, if they buy an MP3 album from Amazon’s music download service they get 20Gb free for one year.

Songs bought through Amazon’s music service can be synced automatically to the Cloud Drive but any other songs can also be transferred from a Mac or Windows computer via a special app called Amazon MP3 Uploader. It’s worth mentioning that this Cloud Drive can be used also to store other digital data such as photos, videos and documents.

Music playback actually happens through the browser. Users go to a special music Cloud Player web page where their music can be streamed.

The basic concept is to allow people to stream their music collection anywhere there’s Internet access. The reason this is a big deal is that industry analysts and pundits seem to believe this is the way forward for music consumption.

As Internet penetration increases, more and more people will want to store their music in the “cloud” rather than on hard drives. Or so the thinking goes. It’s also what Google and Apple are working on. There’s even talk that Facebook may get into this game too.

Amazon now has the first mover advantage, which sometimes counts for a lot in the tech world. The other advantage that Amazon has is its massive server farms which it actually rents out to users via its Amazon Web Services business. (No doubt Google has massive server farms too but it doesn’t sell music... at least not yet).

Apple however has a superior eco-system: iPod player, iTunes music player and iTunes store. Amazon knows first-hand how important having a complete eco-system is. The success of its digital book business has a lot to do with the fact that it has a complete eco-system. It had its Kindle e-reader, Kindle app and Kindle e-books.

This has led some analysts to speculate whether an Amazon music device is in the works, perhaps not one with a massive hard drive (like the iPod... mine has 160Gb) but one geared towards online streaming.

Some drawbacks

This is all very interesting but there are some drawbacks. Firstly, the service is currently only available in the US and it’s not clear how long it will take before it is rolled out to the rest of the world.

Secondly, for the streaming to work there obviously needs to be Internet access. Mobile unlimited access plans are getting rarer and rarer everywhere around the world, including in the US.

Thirdly, the fact that Internet access is necessary to steam the music means the service is inaccessible in subways and on planes or anywhere where there is no Wi-Fi or 3G service.

Still, this is a big first step towards the future of portable music. Over time, especially if (or when) it’s available worldwide, and when Internet access becomes widespread, it could be a way for Amazon to steal some thunder from Apple’s iTunes music store.

 

OON YEOH is managing editor of AsiaReach Media. You can follow him at www.twitter.com/oonyeoh.