Amazon Launches Cloud Drive and Cloud Player

I don't think so... I'm quite happy having all of my music on a good old hard drive inside my own computer.

do you keep your contacts on a plastic spindle of index cards, too, matt?

or is that just cause it's all off of limewire?

cloud this...cloud that. When is this trend gonna come closed?

Really, I agree with having all my stuff on a HDD/SSD and or backup. The cloud can be used for larger enterprise. i see no use for it in the basic user world except to rip off the consumer.

I actually think this is a great idea, I have often thought that cloud will do very well as a service. However you can have the greatest product ever made, but if people don't know it exists or what it is, then it won't go anywhere. Amazon should run commercials.

I think cloud is a horrible idea for an Operating system though , but as a mass storage service instead of having to buy external harddrives; this could work well.

I think the mainstream user/apple/ computer illiterate lol will gobble it up, and it may be for the better when people can be pretty bad getting viruses or breaking their computer products. I'd rather a 3rd party like amazon set this trend and be successful at it than heavyweights like apple and microsoft, better for the markets.

I agree with what the people above are saying. I have a massive 4 bay QNAP NAS, and a second NAS that I backup the most important stuff on. And for the really importnat stuff additional copies are on portable HDDs laying around the house.
But condiser this. Convenient online accessibility for just $20 a year for 20GB. I tried to get my Mobile QNAP access through my Nexus One to work but I gave up in the end. It was a b****, QNAP don't make it easy. 20GB is a lot of media to pull off, for those of us with an umlimited 3G plan (I am in Asia - my unlimited means unlimited!).
If anybody got their Mobile QNAP to work (outside of their home networ) on an Android device to work please let me know!

So if I already have 20Gb of music I can upload it to my 20Gb online storage space (which will take forever) then will be able to access it anywhere.

Firstly, if I already had 20Gb of music I would put it on a micro-SD card and also be able to access it anywhere.

Secondly, listening to music streamed via the Cloud would kill my data plan.

Thirdly, constant 3G streaming of music files would kill the battery much faster than just reading from a memory card.

So far no one has sold me the killer feature for this and to make worse if I don't pay the $20 a year fee I can't access my content, therefore I no longer own it, I rent it.

I'm more than happy to have my data storage at home TY, as a backup this could be nice tho.

Some people speak about the cloud this and cloud that and that its the best that have happened to the computer industry but what about the consumers/users?

For the consumer the cloud is nothing but a step back towards the computer stone-age when the user had a terminal who only displayed video and took keyboard/mouse and sent it to a server who did all the processing. The industry for sure like this idea, way easier to manage and it forces the user to agree to the terms the companies dictate or they wont get any access to their services (that will likely be very cheap at start but after a while....)

I can understand the idea of the Cloud, but I personally don't trust my data with it. It would take a very long time to upload all the data and you can't access the data if the service is down, and streaming the data could be painful if the servers are slow or having problems.

I guess it could be used as a backup for people’s data if they trust it enough. But internet speeds would have to improve a lot to make it practical.

Rantoc, I think you are thinking negatively about cloud computing as a personal user. Cloud offers business enormous potential. Thin-clients, lower cost of ownership of hardware AND software. True portability and accessibility, whilst mitigating data risks. Ease of centralized systems management. It is far from a backwards progression and business are leaping towards it because it is so much of a no-brainer. Software as a service is now so much cheaper and easier to operate than buying licenses that work on only one machine and need to be constantly upgraded. Eventually even home users will see the benefits of cloud computing and OnLive, and online streaming are just two such examples.

I split the difference with most of the comments here. I prefer to have my music/photos/data resident to the devices I use. However, I prefer backup for all that on the cloud. Having music on my PC and MP3 player means I have access to it when my ISP is having issues (or as one commenter noted, on an airplane) but having my family photos on the cloud means that if the house burns down, I don't lose everything. External hard drives just don't cut it in the event of a natural catastrophe.

I've put a lot of thought into this one. I've always leaned more towards the streaming... I like having access to stuff anywhere, any time. The music and the recordings don't REALLY belong to us when we "buy" them anyways. We're really just paying for the right to listen to them whenever we feel like it. If the greedy recording studios want to keep the tracks on their server and stream them to devices, I'm fine with it, as long as they realize that I'm not paying more than $10/month- $50 a year range...

I like clouds

The value of any cloud application depends upon the detail: what does the terms of service agreement say?

If I own it and Amazon can't screw with it, great. But it's not so good if Amazon thinks it can modify, delete, change formats, restrict access, limit to particular devices, restrict transfers to other services, etc.

Actions speak louder than words. Remember what Amazon did with Kindle owners: it deleted books (including markup and comments by the user) because it decided to delete them. Amazon, in its sole judgment, without notice, and without the user having an opportunity to cover the loss.

I already tried it, and it works great. It was a much handier way to get the tunes on my work and home computers than a flash drive. Then I can iPod it from there. Having to move stuff around and sync up the 4 places I keep my music is a pita.

It's just a storage space so you dont lose purchased downloads, really. Very kewl.

How about my home PC set up as an FTP server.

Instant cloud storage with 8TB of capacity and no annual fee.

This will all go well with all the ISP's switching to capped or by the byte billing.

amazon+cloud= fail

@back_by_demand
good call. setting that up, though, requires more expertise than most people can handle. even if they can figure out getting a dynamic dns type client, they have to configure a FTP Server or set up VPN access...both daunting to casual users. then, they have to configure their router's firewall. honestly, i'm even a fan of microsoft's 'to the cloud' concept to at least get people interested in this technology...hopefully they will get a taste and then want to do it right (I'm assuming Microsoft's implementation is general, at best) eventually.

As for cloud storage, this seems like a no-brainer. But I'm with the people who want to keep their files locally, too.

...so, you have some type of 'sync' feature built in for your computer (which, in theory, has enough storage to hold all your files), and the ability to stream to your handhelds and other limited storage devices or for when you are away from home. Or, the option to choose what to sync to a handheld, which could help with bandwidth. It could even require some type of monitor to ensure a purchased file isn't being used concurrently, in two locations to appease the record labels.