Editing in the Cloud: The Killer Feature that Gives Google Music the Cloud Advantage

googlemusic I was pretty excited when Amazon beat the crowd that matters to the cloud with the Amazon Cloud Player. Since I buy all of my music from Amazon, it is convenient to have my music purchases sent directly to my Amazon cloud, for immediate playing, and downloading only as needed.

I was so excited, in fact, that I bought a bunch more cloud space and began the arduous process of moving my huge music collection to the cloud.

But there was a little problem. Like many audiophiles, I am pretty anal where my music tags and artwork are concerned. If I see a mislabeled genre or mixed up album cover, I need- who am I kidding, I simply must have- a way to quickly fix it.

On the Amazon cloud, that’s not all that easy to do. Amazon doesn’t (yet) provide a way to edit song or album details from the cloud. You have to download the songs you want to fix, delete them from the cloud, fix them locally and then re-upload them.

That’s sort of a drag. Figuratively and literally. I also find Amazon’s music uploader less than elegant and not very reliable.

With Google’s recent introduction of Google Music, there is a new competitor in the cloud. While it’s early, I think I slightly prefer Google’s look and feel.

But probably not enough to outweigh the ability to send my Amazon purchases directly to my Amazon cloud. However, I quickly discovered a feature that tips the scale decidedly in favor of Google. It’s much more appealing than Lady Gaga. It’s the ability to edit from the cloud!

Sweet!

At the end of the day, the process to get my new music from Amazon to Google Music is pretty simple, and automated. I configured Google Music Manager to monitor my Amazon download folder, and automatically upload whatever shows up there.

I agree that Apple may one day deliver a cloud-dominating knock-out punch, but that may take some time, as you can never count out the innovation adverse music industry (as an aside, I get a few dollars from BMI every quarter or so, and I still can’t abide the obstacles these organizations keep tossing on the path to access). They may be trying to protect someone’s income, but I’m not certain it’s the songwriters’.

In any event, I’m pretty excited about Google Music. The 20,000 song limit will prevent me from moving all of my music there (at least until cheap extra storage becomes available, like Amazon offers).

But as of now, it’s leading the race to become my default music manager. Stay tuned, however, because the race is just beginning.

Is There Even One Decent Facebook App?

If there is, I’ve never seen or heard of it.

I’ve largely come around on Facebook as the only efficient way to keep up with people who don’t share my love of things nerdy. That includes about 99% of my friends and every member of my family over 13.

The fact is that Facebook is simply inevitable. Resistance is both futile and isolating.

But Facebook has a huge problem. No it’s not the fact that Microsoft saved Facebook from itself by taking the bait and grossly overpaying for Skype. It’s the apps.

It’s the fact that none of them are worth a crap. I have spent far more time filtering out stupid Facebook apps than I have using them. In fact, I have 74 apps filtered out of my Facebook stream. The list grows constantly.

From Hearts to Hugs to Best Friend Quiz to Egg Buddies to anything Ville to Mafia Wars to various sweepstakes. None of it is worth a crap, and all of it is junk. Unless I want to become a mouse clicking zombie in service to some developer’s bank account, not one of them benefits me in any way.

It’s the fact that it seems like most Facebook apps are malware. I am now conditioned to look for a warning- “Do not click on this or that”- whenever I see an appish-looking post in my Facebook stream. Facebook apps have the same trust level as links in spam.

It’s the fact that, even if an app is technically not malware, you have no idea what it can access, and what it, in turn, discloses and to whom. You have more privacy at a nudist camp that you do on Facebook.

In sum, the entire Facebook app ecosystem is broken.

It needs to be demolished and rebuilt from the ground up. There’s just no way to salvage any kind of trust out of the chaos that Facebook has created. Facebook needs to take a page from Apple’s book and worry about protecting its users, not serving them up as fodder to scammers and shady apps.

It should happen. But until people vote with their filters, it probably won’t.

Up Against the Day, Redneck Mother

I was thinking about writing a Mother’s Day post, but OmegaMom already wrote the best one I’ve ever read [update: sadly OmegaMom’s blog is gone and the domain was purchased by spammers; I removed the link.]. That post should become the Pledge of Orphans, to be recited by us all on maternal occasions.

My mom was, almost all of the time, a super-cool lady and someone I really enjoyed talking with. It’s uncanny to me how many of my core personal values come directly from her. Both good- she was moderate, politically, in a region that based on my Facebook stream is rife with hardcore conservatives (or, as I like to refer to them, haters). And questionable- I have absolutely no tolerance for poor performance, as my kids will attest. Ask my kids what to try means and they will roll their eyes and respond, “to fail with honor.”

Mom has just entered her teenage years in heaven, Nirvana, Jannah, Valhalla, the great hereafter, or the cold, cold ground, depending on what you believe. In a nutshell, I am convinced that there is a higher power deserving of praise, but when I dive into the details of traditional Christian teaching, I run into trouble- particularly as it relates to heaven. What do you do there all day? What about babies? What if you have more than one long-time spouse, etc.? The devil is in the details, I guess.

The best description of heaven I’ve ever heard was by the angel Castiel in this past Friday’s Supernatural episode. And, no, I’m not kidding.

I wrote a short story inspired by the last time I saw my mom, and a song about the last night I spent at her house.

Now, I’m the husband to a mother. My girls, particularly, like to hang out with me. I pretend that it’s because they think I’m cool and fun, but it’s probably because they know I’m easier to manage. When they skin a knee, they fly right past me, asking where Mom is. I suspect that’s almost always the way it works.

The second best Mother’s Day message I read this year was from a guy I work with. He’s from New York, but he likes country music. He is the best email writer I know. I think he writes emails the way songwriters write songs. He penned a hit earlier this morning:

As seriously as we take our jobs,
there are no jobs more important than the ones mothers do, day in and day out.
I often think of my own mother and the core values she instilled in me early on–what could I be without them??
So to all of you who have (or had) wonderful mothers, to all of you who are married to wonderful mothers and most of all, to all of you who ARE wonderful mothers –
I wish you and your mothers a very Happy Mother’s Day!!

Happy Mother’s Day, mom, wherever you are. Happy Mother’s Day, Raina.

Happy Mother’s Day to all the mothers. Mothers who have raised your [children] so well.

(On the origin of redneck mothers, for the curious)