Google Music - I'm Sold

I recently received my invite to the new Google Music Beta.  There has been a great deal of press surrounding the release of this service.  Especially of note was the inability of Google to receive agreements with major music labels prior to going live. This didn't seem like a big deal to me but I can see that it will be a big detractor in the future it they don't get it solved.  One other note, I haven't used Amazon's cloud service either, I'm pretty much an iTunes guy.

So iTunes became the biggest issue for me in considering Google Music Beta.  All of my current music is stored within iTunes.  Reading through the release notes Google said there would be no issues with importing my music into their cloud from iTunes.  So I decided to give it a try.

BLUF:  I'm a big fan of Google Music Beta.  Their seamless integration with Android and the cloud where my music is copied is a perfect combination.

After I receive the invitation to try our Google Music I downloaded their application from the log in page. It is called Music Manger (See below).

As you can see I selected the iTunes player, hit OK and 1950 songs were automatically copied to Google's Music cloud.  Actually it was that easy.  It did take over an hour for all the music to appear and be available to play.  Also all of my playlists were copied over intact with links automatically set up for playing.  Artwork was also associated correctly and I was offered free music to get started.  See below for a screen snapshot after the sync.

One question that I had with this process was whether or not I would run into any licensing issues with my music.  I've ran into this with Apple all the time, especially when I change computers.  Basically there were no issues with licensing with Google Music that I found.

So onto the most important question.  So how does this work with my Android phone?  Basically I already had Google Music on my Nexus S already.  As I opened up the application all the music I had loaded up to Google Music cloud was there and ready to play.  I was about as seamless as you can get.  No more fussing with iTunes and my android phone.  Music Manger now keeps my iTunes library in sync with my Google Music cloud and my Android.  I was basically sold from that point forward.

I've used Google Music Beta now for over two weeks and have traveled with it across the country.  Basically all the 1950 songs are not automatically downloaded to my Droid, they are playable over the internet.  As I play them they are then downloaded and available whether I'm connected into the internet or not.  This is only a problem when seating on a plan when you are disconnected.  Basically in that situation you can see and play the songs you've listened to before, but the songs that you havn't listened to are not available for playing.  That seems like the only drawback that I can find.

If Google can figure out how to solve the partnerships issues with the major record labels I can see using Google Music exclusively for management of my music as well as purchasing of tracks.  From what I've read this may not be a quick offering by Google.