MSpot Unveils Cloud-Based Music System for Android

Wired.com

In the race to make music accessible from anywhere, MSpot’s music service has a somewhat novel approach: Don’t sell anything, yet, and don’t sign any major label deals.

Instead, the service allows people to upload their music — be it purchased, ripped or downloaded for free — and access it from any Mac, Windows or Google Android device. MSpot’s model avoids the stumbling blocks of licensing deals which have repeatedly delayed the release of a U.S. version of Spotify — a paid, streaming music service that’s immensely popular in Europe.

Others — including MP3Tunes — have tried a similar approach and faced resistance in the form of the usual copyright lawsuits from record labels, but MSpot says it has the labels’ blessings. That’s despite not paying them a dime in licensing costs for the service.

Being cozy with Google might have helped as well. Daren Tsui, CEO of MSpot, unveiled the service in a high-profile slot during the keynote at the Google I/O conference in San Francisco on Wednesday.

“Today, how people sync music is they’re manually connecting that USB cable, they have to transfer all their files, and any time your library changes, you’ve got to sync up,” Tsui told Wired.com. “With the music now in the cloud, we believe you don’t have to do that anymore. Any changes happen in the background, and you see that on your mobile device.”

MSpot is currently in private beta mode, but users can request invites on the company’s website to try the web and/or Android version.

The way it works is simple: Rather than trying to recognize the music files on your computer and replicate it in the cloud, which would likely invite licensing issues with the labels, MSpot literally uploads your music collection from iTunes, Windows Media Player, and/or any folders you specify — maintaining any ratings and metadata you may have set up in iTunes by scanning its XML database. The upload process takes at least several hours depending on processing power and connection speed, but once it’s there, you’re good to go.

The company is still working out details of this freemium music locker service, according to Tsui, but plans to offer “north of 2 GB” of free music storage — or more for a monthly fee. All files are converted into 48-Kbps aacplus files (a standard format for mobile music streaming services), meaning that you can store over four days of music in a free 2-GB locker — plenty for most music fans.

You can listen to all of your uploaded music using any Mac or Windows computer, or an Android smartphone, with the option to view lyrics and artist biographies and discographies for songs recognized by MSpot. Again, all of this is free for up to 2 GB. The most-recently played songs cache automatically to the device so you can still listen without a strong Wi-Fi or wireless data connection.

One reason the labels are fine with MSpot’s storage locker, said Tsui, is that the company plans to layer a music subscription service on top of this storage locker, in the hope that fans will pay for the ability to add to their collection. However, when they pay to store larger collections, none of that money must be paid to the labels.

The company already counts 6 million customers across 10 different mobile carriers for its various mobile media services, and this music locker service should attract even more.

MSpot’s freemium music locker service for Android smartphones and computers will be available to the public at some point in June, with apps for RIM, Windows and possibly Apple smartphones to come thereafter.

Apple, of course, is likely readying something similar, following its purchase of Lala. However, Tsui appeared confident that MSpot would be able to compete toe-to-toe with whatever Apple/Lala ends up looking like.

May 19th, 2010

www.wired.com