We're Missing The Point Of The Cloud: It's Not Supposed To Be Locked To A Single Service
from the where-are-my-apis? dept
In the last few months now, we've had the launch of Amazon's, Google's and now Apple's "music locker" services. There are some key differences there, but all of them involve storing music collections in the so-called "cloud." But here's the thing: none of these actually match the promise of what "the cloud" is supposed to be. Rather, each involves online storage and lock-in to a particular vendor. I made this point back when Amazon launched its offering. I already back up all my (yes, legal and authorized) music via a mountable "cloud" drive using S3. Then I can access all of that music using any music player I want. With Amazon's and Google's offerings, the streaming only can occur via its own streaming service. In fact, the ultimate in ridiculousness was that I had to re-upload some songs to Amazon's music locker, rather than just point it at my S3 drive -- which is run by Amazon as well! At least with Apple's the focus seems to be syncing the music on various devices, but with Apple's control over the platform, it seems likely that for most people this still will effectively restrict usage to Apple applications.I absolutely understand why this is happening, and am sure that the labels would positively freak out if someone had offered a cloud service that you could point any application to. But, really, when we're talking about "the cloud" and it involves this kind of lockup, it's important to remember that we're really not seeing some of the key features that the whole concept of "the cloud" is supposed to enable. Yes, we're seeing the remote storage and the access from anywhere type features, but not the ability to access information and data with different services. And, of course, once you could access such info with different services, you could see some real innovation start to occur around that information, including unique services for sharing and combining playlists, and making music a lot more social. At some point that will come, but, until then, these offerings are nice, yet hardly demonstrate what the technology really could do if it were unshackled.
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Filed Under: cloud, innovation, music, technology
Companies: amazon, apple, google
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Re:
The problem I have with "the cloud" is that none of the "cloud" companies actually fit the definition they gave "the cloud", they just fit file upload services, the same that's been around for a very long time.
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Re: Re:
Sometimes that is achieved via "dumb terminal" status (i.e. web apps), other times it is achieved via automatic client synchronisation (e.g. Firefox Sync, Dropbox, over the air Google Calendar/Contact sync to a smartphone). Some services (such as Dropbox or the Calendar/Contact example) mix the two modes - you can use the web app *or* the smart client as you choose.
The principle missing component is direct service-to-service transfers for large files (as opposed to the dumb download+reupload approach typically needed now).
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"Cloud."
I threw a click-counter app on my phone at the last trade show I went to. I got up to 4500 clicks just on the word cloud in presentations before it was over. None of them were describing the same things.
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Re: "Cloud."
There are advantages to that model, of course. There are also large disadvantages, which is why it was ditched as soon as technology made that possible.
One of the primary disadvantages is that you lose control of your own data. You're entrusting it to third parties. You trust the third parties will go to bat for you against others who make even the flimsiest of legal claims to access or remove your data. You trust that the fees being charged won't get jacked up in the future. You trust that you'll be able to get your data back out without a lot of pain. You trust that your provider will respect you and the integrity of your data.
Given the history of big companies, there's not a single item in that list that I can honestly say I can trust any single one of them about.
Besides, the consumer advantages of "the cloud" can be easily replicated by just about anyone for a couple of hundred bucks, using their own server and a bit of free software. So you can have the good stuff without having to trust anything beyond yourself and your hardware.
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I know why!
Danmark recently even forbade the use of Google Apps for administrative applications involving customer data... See http://www.linklaters.com/Publications/Publication1403Newsletter/TMT_Newsletter_March_2011/Pages/04_ Denmark_Cloud_Brought_Down_Earth.aspx
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Roll Your Own
Great program for streaming your content over the net.
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Re: Roll Your Own
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Or is it possible we haven't seen a viable cloud service that works as intended because of these (false) concerns?
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Good ole fashioned vendor lock-in
I admit though, I am using Dropbox with an encrypted file to store some data so I can get it synced between my laptop and PC. So far I love it, but I am using Truecrypt to encrypt a file where I would rather have the whole cloud drive encrypted.
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Re: Good ole fashioned vendor lock-in
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XKCD FTW
http://xkcd.com/908/
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What is the contingency plan for these companies that now hold so much of our data that the removal of said data can greatly impact someone's life?
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The promise of the cloud was never every device or every vendor
You can still use Google Music on a PC running Windows, or a Mac, or your friend's computer with your own credentials. Same with Amazon, same with most cloud services. If you have a browser that supports HTML and Javascript, you can run Gmail, not just with Google's browser. If your devices supports the access, then you can use it. If your vendor never went through the trouble to write something that would allow the device to support the service, that's a reason not to buy it.
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It's smoke...
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Missing the point of the cloud?
The really sad thing is all of these music locker services can be replicated with a bit of web space and a secure ftp server. Instant mountable network storage solution you can access anywhere.
Even better. We can set all of this up from home. The likes of D-Link allow consumers to register a URL that will always point to their router and by extension their very own server at home. You can take your music with you anywhere you go for the cost of broadband + electricity.
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Vendor lock in
If more cloud services were to emerge (which the RIAA will try to prevent) what would stop you from using more than one?
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