2013-05-27

My experience converting from Spotify to Google Music

Yesterday I spent a few hours converting from Spotify to Google Music. I had been waiting for this moment for some time (I'll explain in a minute), so when Google announced at I/O that they were rolling out a subscription music service, I jumped on it right away.

Google is my choice for a consolidated digital locker right now; that was a major influencing factor why I switched. When the subscription service arrived, it filled the gaps that kept me from using Google Music exclusively.

What Google does well:

  • Web client is dead simple, beautiful, and fully intuitive in my opinion
  • Android client is excellent too (with the latest update that is)
  • Well organized catalog of music
  • Music recommendations and "radio" are on par with Spotify (if not better on occasion)

Where Google separates themselves from the competition:
  • I can buy music to augment where subscription content is not available
  • I can upload my own music (homemade recordings from friends, music absent from Google's catalog, or music purchased from other places)
  • No software install required (for playing music)
  • Software for syncing my local music to Google Music just works (works perfectly on Linux too!)
  • Integrated with Google Play, which is integrated with Google Wallet; dead simple purchasing
  • Google had ~5 songs that were absent or greyed out in Spotify for some reason (see below about a few missing songs though)
The bad:

  • Converting playlists by hand took a few hours; I'm sure it's a matter of time before scripts or an official conversion tool comes along
  • Hit ~5 "Try again." errors; nothing serious. Trying again did the trick. With any new service I would expect small bugs like that.
  • Out of a large list of music, there were about ~10 songs that weren't in Google's catalog. I'm hoping in time they seek to land deals with the smaller labels.
  • Google is the master of search; there were a few things that didn't turn up in results like I would expect, but with the right phrase it would. It'll get better I suspect.
I started with Grooveshark, moved to Spotify, now I'm on Google Music. I'm happy with the consolidation; I'm just hoping this lasts for a while so I don't have to switch again.


No comments:

Post a Comment