Wins for Google Music Beta

There are two points where Google Music Beta is a winner right out of the gate that nobody fully offers. Based on the disclaimer that Music Beta is free for a limited time, I don't know if it's enough to keep me on board, but we'll see.

Wireless Syncing
The first point is the wireless syncing. I know, there are others that do it. MusicWithMe, Winamp, and DoubleTwist. For me, these are all fails, and here are my reasons. MusicWithMe requires a Facebook login. This wasn't quite a deal breaker for me ...close, but not quite..., but the unreliable and extremely slow sync pushed me over the edge. I uninstalled, and didn't look back.
Winamp also had several issues. Of course, most of my syncing will be over wifi, but winamp doesn't offer the option. Not only does it have to be over wifi, but last time I used it, I had to sync from a laptop what was on the same wifi network. If the computer was wired, it wouldn't work. The host had to be on wifi. Unacceptable. At the very least, because this setup required my laptop, on wifi, has to have a drive mapped over wifi to the source data, and then the wireless connection to my phone. On top of that, it was unreliable. When I'm copying over 100 files, I can't have the thing just stop, especially when ideal conditions still take overnight to copy those 100 files.
Doubletwist? Why the hell do people keep trying to charge me to access my own personal content and think it's gonna fly? nuff said.
So, here's Google Music Beta. All I have to do is check a box, and my music begins to download to my device. It's slower than I'd like, but it works over 3g if I want, it works over wifi, and because of that, it works anywhere I want it to. And, since it's a static setting in the app, Google knows I want this downloaded. Even if the app crashes or the network drops, the music is still selected to be stored locally. Plus, Google isn't charging me for this. It's part of the Google Music app.
Generally speaking, I don't need my music stored locally. I'm ok with streaming because it usually works so well, but there are times when I like content stored locally. Maybe I'm commuting in bad weather, or travelling in an area where I have no data access. Google lets me put stuff locally, and it also caches recently played songs. We'll see how it works in practice, but in theory, I should never have to worry about being without tunes.


Combines Local and Cloud Music
This is a feature I haven't seen anywhere yet. Feel free to tell me if I'm wrong, I'd love to know, but Google Music Beta is integrated with my native Google Music app, and it integrates my entire music collection in to one single place, and gives me one single interface in to all of it. There is a setting that allows me to see only local music, but by default, local, remote, it's all in the same bucket and theoretically is accessed as if it exists in the same bucket. Genius. I shouldn't know whether I'm listening to streaming music, or my own music. I don't want to know, I just want my music. Soon, I'll see how this actually works in practice, but in theory, this is a killer feature for me. I want to prepare for those times that I'm without a good data connection, but I don't want to maintain two separate collections. I want my music to just work. End of story. 


Possible Failure Point
There is one major possible failure point, and that's the disclaimer that "Google Music Beta is free for a limited time" or however the statement is made. If we're looking at a situation where the current limit of 20,000 files remains free, I'm probably ok with that. It's taken me years, no, literally decades, to build my collection. I haven't ripped everything, and not everything in my collection I always want to have available, and I'm only half way to the 20,000 files. It will be a very long time till I get to that limit. If, on the other hand, Google does what everybody else does and drops the limit to around 5 gigs for free, I'm out. No questions asked. I'll drop the service in a heart beat.
There are other options that could save this, however. For one, Google could offer a service that seamlessly integrates the ability to stream from your personal hard drives. This is why I love AudioGalaxy. All they do is index my music. When I stream it, I'm streaming from my own computer. Really, I love that. I own my content, I own my storage space, I'm not paying a third party to serve me what I already own. If Google did that, I wouldn't care if they dropped their free limit to 1mb. I'd use the service.
If Google did what they were rumored to be doing, and simply index your collection and play what they have in their collection, and only charge you to store the tracks they don't have. I might be willing to do that as well.
Finally, if Google provided a service like Slacker Radio where you have an Internet radio, but add seamless integration with your own collection. That's a service I'd pay for.

In any case, back to the original point, Google really has made two major wins right out of the gate, and ate my iPod's lunch. I don't know if they've killed it yet, but we'll see.