The listen feature will works in both individual and group settings. Those friends listening to music will show a music note beside their name. Initially Spotify, Mog, and Rdio are supported, although Facebook says other services are on their way.

Making it a more social experience, those who also click the “Listen” button will be added into a group chat where everyone can discuss what they’re listening to. Of course there are privacy concerns, and Facebook has provided instructions to control that if you so desire.

Facebook doesn’t yet allow you to switch DJs like Turntable.fm allows. I’m willing to bet that the feature will come soon if Facebook is truly is serious about competing with already existing services, however.

Has anyone used this yet? What are your thoughts? Let us know in the comments.

When Apple brought its OS X music app GarageBand to the iPad earlier this year, it was a convincing counter-argument–one of many–to the increasingly tired theory that the iPad is only good for consuming stuff, not creating it. Now it’s taken that iOS version of the app and made it work on the iPhone (and iPod Touch), too. (It’s one universal $4.99 app for all three devices.)

On the iPhone, GarageBand is a nicely shrunken-down version of its iPad self, with virtual pianos, organs, drums, guitars, and the ability to record and play with samples and plug in a guitar. You can record music and transfer it to the OS X version of GarageBand (which is part of iLife) for further work.

I don’t even qualify as an amateur musician, but GarageBand is fun to play with, and the general level of polish and ambition is exceptionally impressive. I’ll be fascinated to see what people who know what they’re doing do with it. Images after the jump.

Like Spotify, MOG lets you listen to any song or album you want from a library of about 11 million tracks. But unlike Spotify, MOG’s free service isn’t strictly time-limited. (Spotify users get six months of unrestricted listening, followed by 10 hours per month and five plays per track.) Instead, MOG uses a game-like system that rewards certain actions with more free listening. Refer some friends, get some free time. Recommend a playlist, get more free time. Click on an ad, get more free time.

MOG won’t say exactly how much free listening you’ve got or how much you’re earning. Free listening is represented by an ambiguous meter that works like a gas tank (that is, before cars told you how many miles you had left). But MOG says that if you’re got a lot of clout through social media, you could theoretically get free music forever.

The whole system is the service’s way of trying to go viral. To that end, MOG is launching a new HTML5 app that’s easier to use than MOG’s old website and a lot more convenient to access than Spotify’s installed application. David Hyman, MOG’s founder and CEO, coyly told me that if Facebook were to “hypothetically” launch a music service of its own (as rumored and expected), MOG would allow users to log in through the social network.

In a couple of months, MOG will start showing ads on its website, but what the company really wants is for people to eventually sign up for its paid service, which for $10 per month includes smartphone access and unlimited listening. The premium version of MOG is good enough to replace iTunes and downloadable music entirely, but these  kinds of services have never gone mainstream because people don’t like the idea of leasing songs instead of owning them. That’s a problem, because they’re unsustainable on ads alone.

Ideally, free versions MOG and Spotify will convince people that unlimited streaming music has its virtues and that paying for the service is worthwhile. But they also risk reinforcing the idea that music should be free, prompting record labels to pull the plug on licensing. I hope the former scenario is the one that pans out, because I like these services and want them to stick around for a while.

Now, TechCrunch reports that a Turntable.fm iPhone app is coming soon, and the site has a handful of screenshots to prove it. (Co-founder Billy Chasen seems to have confirmed the rumor, writing in the comments that “We were saving this as a surprise for [TechCrunch's Disrupt conference] when I’m on stage.”)

That’s great news, but it also makes me wonder whether the free ride on this very cool music service is coming to an end.

At the moment, Turntable.fm costs nothing to use. Its entire library of millions of songs can be listened to for free, with no time limits or restrictions on skipping tracks, as long as one other user is taking turns being the DJ. And I’ve never seen a single advertisement on the website.

That’s not to say Turntable.fm isn’t paying to deliver music to users. Although Turntable.fm argues that it doesn’t have to make deals with record labels, it still has to pay music composers for performance rights, and has already signed deals with ASCAP and BMI. There’s also no guarantee that record labels won’t start arguing for direct licensing deals. The legality of the service depends on Turntable’s interpretation of the Digital Millenium Copyright Act, as All Things Digital’s Peter Kafka points out. And in any case, Turntable will eventually want to make money for itself.

The launch of an iPhone app seems like a good opportunity for Turntable.fm to start thinking about revenue. So I wonder: Will it require a subscription? Will we suddenly see restrictions on desktop listening, akin to Pandora’s 40-hour per month limit? And will Turntable.fm offer some kind of membership with other perks, like higher quality streams and exclusive avatars? I’m guessing many of these questions will come up next week. I’m interested to hear Turntable’s answers.

Naturally, that leaves a lot of unanswered questions. Here’s what I’d most like to know about Spotify’s U.S. launch:

When’s the launch date?

Spotify’s U.S. launch plans aren’t a big surprise, even if they’re now official. The bigger question is when the service will be available, and to how many people? All we know is that the service will be invite-only at first.

Does Spotify have all the deals it needs?

To launch in the United States, Spotify needed new deals with record labels, and it’s not yet clear whether all those deals are in place. The big four record labels are key, but equally important are the indie labels that appeal to more obscure tastes.

How much music will be free?

As Macworld’s Christopher Breen notes, Spotify’s current terms of service provide six free months of ad-supported music. After that, non-paying customers get 10 free hours per month, but may not listen to a single track more than five times. Before November 10, users in Europe didn’t have these limitations. Whether U.S. users will face even more restrictions is unknown. (The premium service costs 10 pounds per month in the United Kingdom, or 5 pounds without mobile access. Presumably that will translate to $10 and $5 per month in the United States, same as competing subscription music services.)

Will Facebook integration be part of the launch?

GigaOM’s Om Malik recently reported that Facebook is preparing to launch a music service that integrates Spotify and other sources. Facebook, meanwhile, is preparing to launch lots of new services in the coming weeks and months, starting with today’s video chat announcement. It sounds like Spotify and Facebook will be intertwined, but maybe not right away.

How will other music services respond?

Spotify’s entering a crowded field in the United States, one that includes MOG, Rdio, Rhapsody and Zune Pass. But none of these services have freemium offerings beyond a brief trial period. MOG has said that it plans to offer some music for free. Will other services follow suit and essentially blend Spotify into the pack?

Will the masses ever pay for music they don’t own?

From what I’ve observed, lack of ownership is still a huge stumbling block for subscription music services. Zune Pass is the only one that lets users keep songs after they’ve stopped subscribing, but it costs $5 more than its competitors for 10 free songs per month. As Spotify has put a greater emphasis on converting users to premium memberships, it’ll have to convince users that instant access to everything is more valuable than ownership of a limited library. So far, Spotify’s competitors haven’t sold the masses on that concept. Maybe the rumored Facebook integration will help Spotify do better.

Few musical acts have the power to excite tech enthusiasts like They Might Be Giants. The band’s attention to detail, appreciation for humor, and perennial refusal to follow the status quo strongly resonate with nerd-folk (think: engineers, programmers) who rely on minutiae and unconventional thinking to do their jobs.

Their unique approach has earned the band two Grammy awards (and three nominations) in the last 10 years for work with Malcolm in the Middle and a string of well-received children’s albums. Of course, with 15 studio albums under their belt, they aren’t exclusively an act for kids. While perhaps best known in the adult world for the 1990 album Flood, it’s impossible to choose a single TMBG record that represents such a large and diverse body of work.

At the core of TMBG is a 29-year partnership between two good friends: John Linnell, 52, and John Flansburgh, 51, who function like two halves of the same brain. Flansburgh delivers culturally-reflective philosophical works in broad strokes, while Linnell often sings through the character of an insecure, paranoid introvert that explores subjects in elaborate detail.

TMBG are known for their eager adoption of technology in creating and marketing their music. The group first relied on an electronic drum machine before adopting a full live band, then adopted computer sequencing in production work. In the mid-1990s, TMBG quickly set up a strong presence on the nascent Web, and they crowned that era by releasing the first full-length MP3-only album in 1999. To this day, they continue their high-tech track record by embracing online distribution, email newsletters, and podcasting as a way to reach out to fans in the post-label era.

As a student of computer and video game history, I often interview people who helped to make the information technology industry what it is today. But I think it’s also important from a historical perspective to explore the impact of technology on the rest of the world. That’s why I asked John Linnell to recall his earliest experiences with such machines and to reflect on how computers have impacted his profession.

In early May of this year, Linnell and I spoke at length over the phone about these subjects while also touching on his fruitful partnership with Flansburgh and how it has ensured the continued success of their band.

High School Hacker, Early Mac User

Benj Edwards: Let’s go back to the beginning. When did you first use a computer?

John Linnell: I knew somebody in the early 80s that had a Radio Shack TRS-80. The entire computer was housed in the keyboard, and you plugged the thing into the back of the [monitor]. It was extremely low-res.

People had written these programs in BASIC where you could type in musical notes, and the program would play this incredibly low-res version of the melody that you typed in. I had a friend that was into tech stuff who had one of those and he let me play with it.

That’s neat that you used music software for the TRS-80.

Yeah, I wish I could tell you more about it. He explained to me that you could type in these really simple numerical symbols for the notes — a stream of note values and time values, separated by spaces or commas. Then you’d play it back, and if it was wrong, you could go in and fix it. But my memory is you probably had to retype the whole thing if you did it wrong. There wasn’t this system of inserting the cursor somewhere. You had to start from the beginning.

Have you ever done any computer programming?

John Linnell, 1977

In high school we had a computer lab — this was in the early 70s. Some friends and I eventually worked our way up to just going in there and goofing around. We learned enough BASIC programming to do these really simple things like write a text game with multiple choices, and you’d weave your way through a story. It was really simple stuff like that.

Was that in Massachusetts?

That’s right. Lincoln Sudbury Regional High School in Sudbury, Mass.

They had a mainframe computer with terminals on it?

Yeah, I can’t remember what it was called, but I can describe it. It looked like a refrigerator and it had two spools of probably half-inch magnetic tape on the front, and when you called up your program, it looked like a big tape recorder. The reels would spin around and find the thing that you were looking for and feed it into your terminal.

There were three typewriter terminals in the room, each with a roll of paper that spooled out of it. When you called up the program, it typed out the whole thing. And on one side of the keyboard, there was paper tape that would punch out. You could save your program for yourself by punching it out onto this paper tape — little ASCII holes were punched into the tape, one row per character.

It would take about five minutes to spool out the whole thing, then you’d tear it off, roll it up, put a rubber band around it, and stick it in your pocket.

If you went back to that time and told yourself, “In thirty years, we’re going to be distributing all of our music through this device,” what would you think?

Well, I think everybody was aware that the technology was advancing all of the time. So I don’t think it would have seemed that preposterous, actually. At the time, we talked about how everything was getting miniaturized, and we used to joke about how you’d — we didn’t really know what it was going to be — but we’d joke about how you’d eventually carry your record collection in your pocket. Just because everything seemed to be getting smaller and smaller.

When did you buy your first computer?

Around the time we were making our second album, Lincoln, I bought a used Mac Plus. It probably had about one meg of memory. I had that little TV set-shaped thing on my desk for a number of years. We used that and some really simple keyboards for sequencing.

I should talk about the first thing that Flansburgh and I did when we got involved in using computers in our music. Our producer, Bill Krauss, had the first generation of Macintosh, the 1984 Mac. He was very on top of all that stuff, and in a way, he kind of forced us. He was like, “You guys gotta learn this. This is going to be essential, especially for sequencing drums,” which is what we had been doing using drum machines. He was like, “You should put all your drums on the computer and you’ll have a much easier time doing it.” That was the sell that Bill was giving us.

He had the very first edition of a program called Performer, which at that time was just a MIDI program. That was probably 1988, because we started typing the drum programs into Performer right before we made Lincoln. Drum sequencing on the Macintosh was going to be the big change between the first and the second albums.

So we learned how to use the Mac by doing sequencing with our producer, Bill Krauss, who had taught us. Then we started sequencing keyboards as well. We were slowly getting our feet wet.

And you had some kind of MIDI box that interfaced between the Macintosh and your other equipment?

Yeah, we had one made by Opcode: a little silver box the size of a pack of cigarettes. You plugged that into the computer on one end and into the keyboard on the other end.

But at the moment, I’m in San Diego for Qualcomm’s Uplinq conference, and when I saw a Sam Goody music store in the same complex as my hotel, I wandered in–and boy, did what I found feel like something from another era.

Until I came across it, I wasn’t sure whether Sam Goody (which was founded in New York City in the 1950s by Samuel Gutowitz) still existed. Apparently, even Sam Goody is uncertain whether Sam Goody still exists: Wikipedia (which refers to the chain in the past tense) says it’s owned by Trans World Entertainment, which also owns FYE, the last bastion of big-time shopping-mall music stores. But the company apparently converted most of the remaining Goody stores into FYEs in 2008 and doesn’t even mention the chain on its corporate site. There is no such place as SamGoody.com anymore, either.

But this San Diego Sam Goody refuses to acknowledge its own fate, like a Japanese soldier hiding out on a Pacific island somewhere. (In this case, the island happens to be Horton Plaza, a sprawling open-air shopping center in San Diego’s Gaslight Quarter.)

The Goody store is a close cousin of the Tower Records and Virgin Megastores I’d once found worth my time, but I’d almost forgotten what they were like, and had to reacclimate myself to the whole concept of a great big retailer dealing primarily in discs with things recorded on them. As I toured the place, I took fuzzy photos with my iPhone.

First of all, this Sam Goody still has a sizable vinyl section. I was pleased to see it, although I shouldn’t have been shocked: even my local Best Buy is devoting more space to vinyl these days.

Goody also has…a blank tape section! (When was the last time I dubbed anything onto tape? The 1990s, although I’ve occasionally listened to cassettes more recently than that.)

Also available in abundance: Zune cases.

There are, however, some obvious signs that we’re in 2011 rather than 2006 or 1985. Such as the Angry Birds department:

And the two–count ‘em, two–Justin Bieber sections. (One on each floor, each different and each a must-visit!)

A fair amount of Goody floor space is now devoted to stuff that has nothing to do with music, movies, or related matters. Such as Waboba Balls. (In the background, though, you’ll note the Bob Marley lamps, which seem like a perfectly reasonable thing for Sam Goody to be selling.)

The second floor of the Goody store is mostly devoted to DVDs and Blu-Rays, a startlingly high percentage of which were anime. But there’s also evidence that this place once consisted of three floors of recorded media–an up escalator that’s now blocked by a High School Musical 2 poster.

Hey, I almost forgot: Sam Goody sells CDs. Not all that many of them–you could miss the section if you weren’t looking for it–but they’re there. The chain’s slogan was once “Goody Got It,” but “Goody Probably Don’t Got It” would now be more appropriate. But I’m not sure if anyone cares at this point: while I saw folks browsing in the store while I was there, I’m not sure if I spotted a single person looking at recorded music.

Back when I spent a lot of time in music stores, I took the existence of an Easy Listening section as the sign of a joint operated by lazy minds–at least if it contained a lot of stuff which really should have been broken out into sections for oldies, vocals, soul, big band, and other genres, as was often the case. Easy Listening was often a synonym for “Stuff We Can’t Be Bothered With.”

And yup, Goody has an Easy Listening section of that type. It was about the only music section in the place with anything I’d want to buy–except that it was so poorly stocked that it didn’t have anything I’d want to buy.

(Um, isn’t that Justin Bieber peeking at us in the upper left-hand corner? Can’t get away from him…)

I’m fascinated by the fact that this Goody store has managed to survive the death of large-scale chain music retailing in this country. I wish it well; the employees I chatted with briefly were pleasant. But two floors of real estate in a major shopping mall in downtown San Diego can’t be cheap. How long do you give it? Is there any way you could turn a store like this into something with a future bright enough to last until, oh, 2020 or so?

Slacker’s approach to integrating on-demand access to albums and songs is pretty straightforward, retaining the emphasis on radio while providing features comparable to the core ones offered by other subscription services. You still get both standard stations in an array of genres and ones you build and tweak yourself based on artists you choose. But now you can toggle between the stations and album view, letting you play albums, songs (eight million of ‘em), and playlists at will–either by streaming them or caching them to your device for offline listening.

The new features are part of a tier of service called Slacker Premium Radio, which costs $9.99 a month, the going rate for on-demand music. You can get a free month of service by going here. As before, there’s a free version that’s highly enjoyable if all you want to do is listen to radio-style music, including custom stations; and Slacker Radio Plus, a $3.99/month variant which eliminates ads, includes lyrics, and lets you cache music and skip past songs an unlimited number of times. (Premium Radio has all of Plus’s features.)

The iPad app is particularly cool–as far as I know, Slacker is the first major music service that’s bothered to build an version that takes advantage of the tablet’s copious real estate. The program looks great, and its multi-pane design makes it easier to browse around than it is on a phone; it’s way more pleasant than dealing with an iPhone app in 2X mode. (Slacker’s iOS version is a universal app with both iPhone and iPad modes.)

The competition among subscription music services is intense: in recent months, I’ve been partial to Rdio, in part it lets you cache music to your phone from the browser interface, has a feature that unlocks songs for streaming if you own them in MP3 form, and has a desktop app–all features which Slacker lacks. But Slacker’s belated entry into the market is nicely done overall. It’s particularly good news for BlackBerry users (who have skimpier music offerings than iOS and Android types), iPad owners, and people who are already fans of Slacker’s approach to Internet radio and want one place to go for music listening.

What It’s All About

Music Beta lets you upload your personal music collection to the cloud for streaming to your computer and other Android devices. Sound kind of familiar? You might recall that Amazon also rolled out a music player this year, Cloud Player. But unlike Amazon’s service, Google’s Music Beta does not sell music. So what’s the appeal? It’s simple and if you do everything through your Google account anyway, you might as well add music management to the mix. Furthermore, Android has always had a miserable music organization system so Music Beta is definitely a welcome addition to the platform.

Your music and playlists are automatically kept in sync. So, if you create a new playlist on your phone, it’s instantly available on your computer or tablet. The music files that exist on your phone or tablet will be mixed in with your cloud-based files. The idea is that you don’t really have to think where their music is stored because it is all in one place. The service also lets you access your songs offline so when you’re on an airplane or your Internet is down, you can still rock out.

What You Should Know Before You Get Started

According to Google, Music is a free service-at least while it is in Beta. Take advantage of all that cloud storage while you can, I guess. The company gave no further details on pricing models or capacity limits. Right now, the beta allows for 20,000 tracks at any bitrate to be uploaded. Google could move to a tiered pricing model at various capacities and perhaps offer a free version that only allows for a handful of songs.

Music Beta supports MP3, WMA, AAC and FLAC files. If you bought a bunch of DRM-protected music from iTunes, you’re totally out of luck. Music Beta does not support M4P (Apple DRM) or M4A (Apple Lossless). You can access your library from any PC, but you can only stream from eight Android devices. Unless you have a ridiculous number of phones and tablets, that’s a pretty generous limit.

Quick and Easy Set-Up

Setting up Music Beta is ridiculously simple. First, you’ll need to request an invitation at music.google.com and sign in with your Google account. When that special day finally comes, you’ll get an e-mail with a link to the service. After a gentle reminder that Music Beta should only be used for legally acquired music, you can get started.

After a few user agreement menus, you’ll have the “option” to download the music manager. Hm, isn’t this a cloud player? Doesn’t that mean I don’t have to install additional software? Well, you do, or how else will you be able to upload your music? Luckily, Music Manager is fairly lightweight and definitely not as needy as iTunes. Still, it is a bit annoying to have to go through this step.

Next, you’ll sign in with your Google Account. Music Manager will then ask where you keep your music: iTunes, Windows Media Player, the Music folder, or somewhere else. You can opt in to add music automatically to Music Manager when you add them to iTunes as well.

If you have a huge library, it will take quite a while to add all of your music. The nice thing is that you can listen to your music as it adds to the player.

One important thing to note that if you’re adding from a folder, it is all or nothing. You can’t pick and choose which songs or albums from iTunes or wherever you want added to the cloud. If you have duplicates of albums or something you never listen to and don’t want it taking up space, remove them from your library before you upload.

Google also throws in a nice surprise by allowing you to download a couple of free songs as you set up your Music Beta account. You don’t really have a choice over what songs you get, but you can choose from a couple of genres. I went with Metal. I found out later that “Metal,” by Google’s definition, is fairly broad so I ended up with a random mix of 80s hairband Warrant and doom metal band High On Fire. Okay, on second thought, you might want to pass on this.

Streaming Your Music On the PC

The Music Beta player will then launch in your browser. For whatever reason, after I was done setting up my account, the player opened in three different windows in Firefox. Annoying.

The user interface is very straightforward. Your music is organized by “New and Recent” (which continuously refreshes as your library is added to the cloud), Songs, Artists, Albums, and Genres. Album art is displayed when it is available, but aesthetically, the user interface is nowhere near as pretty as iTunes or the even better looking Zune player. I did not like that the player doesn’t display full-sized album art when you’re in song playing mode.

There’s a section called Auto Playlists which is broken into “Thumbs Up,” “Recently Added,” and “Free Songs.” My library was still pretty barren (seriously folks, it takes a long time to add your library), but I found it interesting that, under “Thumbs Up,” it listed a certain Milemarker song I had played 18 times on iTunes. I guess “Thumbs Up” automatically loads all the songs you listen to way too much. You can then add more songs to it by giving songs thumbs up (or down if you hate it!) in the Rating column when you’re viewing your library by song.

Instant Mix is Google’s version of the iTunes Genius Playlist. It automatically creates a playlist of songs that go well together. Again, I didn’t have enough music to create any real playlists so I’ll have to revisit this feature once my whole library is uploaded.

Sound quality was pretty good, but when I tried to stream music using an open Wi-Fi connection at a local cafe, the weakness of a cloud-based player shined through: My songs stuttered frequently or wouldn’t play when I wanted them to. My experience on my faster home connection was much more pleasant.

Streaming Music on Your Android Phone

To use Music Beta on your Android device, you’ll have to download a new version of the Music app from the Android App Store. When you launch the app, you’re taken to a welcome screen. It will have your Google Account listed at the bottom asking you if you want to link your Google account to Music player. Of course you do. Hit “done” and within seconds, your library is now on your phone! The user interface for the app is almost identical to that of the Web-based player. Artists, Albums, Songs, Playlists and Genres are listed at the top of the app. You simply swipe your finger to the left or right to select how you want to browse your library.

The Android app is also much prettier than the web-based app. When you’re in Now Playing, you get full-sized album art rather than just a measly thumbnail.

Next to each song, you’ll see a downward facing arrow. Hit that and a menu will pop up asking if you want to play the song, make an instant mix from it, add it to a playlist, shop for the artist (which takes you to a Google Shopping page), more by artist (shows you other songs in your collection) and Search.

Search is kind of an interesting-yet-pointless feature. You can search for more about that particular artist via the Internet, within the original Music player (the one that you currently have on your phone), within the newmusic player (the one I’m currently writing about) or YouTube. Search is incredibly sensitive to how your music is tagged and labeled. If you have track numbers in your song titles, Search will include that track number when it looks for a YouTube video or Shopping listing. I found it pretty annoying to use and it rarely gave me the search results I wanted.

Unfortunately, I was unable to test the app on a Honeycomb-based tablet as my Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 was having issues logging into my Google account. I’ll update this review once I solve my tablet issues.

Bottom Line

If you don’t absolutely need a music store to go along with your music player, Google Music Beta is an excellent supplement to whatever other music programs you might be using. It is simple, lightweight and incredibly easy to use. The cloud-based player isn’t the prettiest, but it is clean and a snap to navigate. Of course, Music Beta lacks an edge in the competition because it has no built-in store, but I predict Google will be making some content deals very shortly. The Music Manager software you have to download is lightweight so if you decide you don’t like Music Beta, it won’t be a burden to uninstall. If you’re looking for an iTunes alternative or just curious about what Google brings to the table, I highly suggest you checking Music Beta out. So far, I’ve been really enjoying it. And right now, it is completely free so take advantage of that while you can.

(This post republished from PCWorld.)

In addition to unveiling two significant updates to its Android operating system on Tuesday – Android 3.1 and the next-generation Android Ice Cream Sandwich – Google took the wraps off its long-discussed Google Music service and launched a new movie service for Android, too. It was all part of Google’s annual I/O conference for developers, taking place this week in San Francisco.

So what are Google’s new music and movie services all about, and how will they work for you? Here are answers to all your burning questions.

What does Google Music actually do?

Google Music lets you store your music collection on Google’s servers. Like with Amazon’s recently launched Cloud Drive, you upload your songs once — using a guided tool — and then can listen to your music anytime, on any computer or Android device.

As you’d expect, everything is automatically and continuously synced, including playlists, so you have an identical experience regardless of what device you use. All you have to do is sign in with your Google account, and you’re good to go.

“No wires, no painful syncing — it’s all just available instantly,” Google Product Manager Paul Joyce explained during Tuesday’s event.

Can I use Google Music now?

Google is treating Google Music as a beta service to start, so you have to request an invite to get on-board. The beta is open to U.S. users only so far, though Google says it hopes to have the service available everywhere eventually.

Do I need any special apps to use Google Music?

On a computer, you don’t need anything other than your browser; you just go to music.google.com to get the whole shebang. From an Android phone or tablet, you can use the official Google Music app for a three-dimensional interface that’ll handle both your cloud-stored songs and any music saved locally on your device.

The Google Music Android app is available now for all devices running Android 2.2 or higher.

How much storage does Google Music give me?

Right now, Google Music is allowing users to upload up to 20,000 songs free of charge. Amazon’s Cloud Drive, in comparison, gives you room for about 1,000 songs and then charges for any additional space.

Will Google Music always be free?

Not necessarily. At Tuesday’s event, Joyce said Google Music would remain free “at least while it’s in beta.” At this point, it isn’t clear what the long-term pricing structure will be.

What if I want to listen to music offline, like when I’m on an airplane?

No problem: The Google Music Android app automatically stores your most recently played songs on your device so you can access them without an Internet connection. You can manually select specific albums or playlists to be made available for offline use, too.

Can I buy music through Google Music?

Not yet. Google had planned to create a music store within the product but ran into conflicts with the record labels (their demands were “unreasonable and unsustainable,” according to one Google manager).

That said, Google has indicated that it plans to keep talking with publishers in order to find some sort of integrated music-selling solution for Android.

Can I upload music from iTunes?

Yep: The Google Music upload tool has an option for that. As long as the files aren’t DRM-protected, it should be smooth sailing.

Can I use Google Music on my iPhone, too?

Don’t count on it. There’s no dedicated Google Music app for iOS, of course (come on, are you reallythat surprised?), and Google confirmed to me that the Web-based player requires Flash to run.

Sorry, Safari.

What’s this “Instant Mix” thing I’m hearing about?

Google Music has a feature called Instant Mix that’ll create playlists for you. It’s kind of like Pandora, only limited to your own music collection: You select a specific song, then Google Music goes through your library and picks out other songs it thinks would go well with your choice.

Okay, so how ’bout movies — how does that work?

Google’s movie-streaming service lets you rent a movie from the Android Market, then watch it on the Web or on your Android device. Once you rent a film, you have 30 days to start watching. After you click “play,” the movie’s good for 24 hours; during that time, you can view it as much as you want from any PC or compatible Android device. You can even watch it via YouTube, if you’re so inclined.

As of now, the Google movie service is available only in the U.S.

How does a movie actually get onto my tablet or phone?

It’s all wireless: You simply make your selection in the Android Market, and the movie streams over-the-air to your device.

Can I watch movies while offline?

Yessiree: Google’s movie-streaming service lets you “pin” a movie to your Android phone or tablet so you can see it even when you don’t have an Internet connection.

What’s selection and pricing like?

Google says it has “thousands” of movies available. At a glance, there appears to be no shortage of new release titles in the virtual racks; you can browse through the Web version of the store yourselfhere.

Pricing ranges from $1.99 to $3.99, depending on the film.

Will Google’s movie-streaming work on any Android tablet or phone?

It’ll work on any Android tablet once the tablet has received the upcoming 3.1 update. Phones running Android 2.2 or higher will get an update that enables movie support sometime “in the coming weeks,” according to Google.

Web-based viewing is available for all users as of today.

Do you want to hang out sometime?

Um, I’m not sure what that has to do with the topic at hand, but sure — give me a ring.

Why is this night different from all other nights?

Okay, that’s definitely off-topic now.

Oday ouyay eakspay Igpay Atinlay?

All right — I think we’re done here.

JR Raphael is a PCWorld contributing editor and the author of the Android Power blog. You can find him on Facebook, on Twitter, or at his geek-humor getaway: eSarcasm.com.

(This post republished from PCWorld)