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Google Music Beta versus the titans of the streaming music space: a chart

It feels like just yesterday we charted the streaming music landscape, but it's already changed in a big way -- Google is muscling in on the likes of Rhapsody, Pandora and particularly Amazon with its Google Music Beta. Being able to take 20,000 of your personal tunes, stream them over the web and cache them locally on your device isn't functionality to sneeze at, so it's time we updated our charts. After the break, see how the big streaming services stack up.



Service:

Google Music Beta

Amazon Cloud Player

Price:

Free... for now, by invitation only, in the US. Stores 20,000 songs.

Between $20/year (20 GB) and $1,000/year for 1 TB

Free sample:

Everything, for now

5 GB free storage

Type of streaming:

Cloud

Cloud

What you pay for:

Nothing, yet

Additional storage capacity

Mobile reach:

Only Android 2.2+

Android and iOS web interface

Unique Features:

Locally cached, pinnable songs

Access to Amazon's MP3 store, fully downloadable tracks

Service:

Pandora

Slacker

MOG

Rhapsody

Price:

$36/year

$4.99/month ($3.99 annual pass)

$9.99/month

$9.99/month (1 device); $14.99 for 3

Free sample:

40 free hours/month

Freemium model

14 days free

14 days free

Type of Streaming:

Radio stations

Radio stations

On-demand, radio stations

On-demand

What you pay for:

Ad-free, higher bit rate, desktop app

Ad-free, unlimited song skips, lyrics, offline caching

Unlimited song streaming, downloads for offline listening

Unlimited song streaming, downloads

Mobile reach:

iOS, Android, BlackBerry, WebOS

iOS, Android, BlackBerry, WebOS, WP7

iOS, Android

iOS, Android, BlackBerry, WP7

Unique features:

Thumbs up/down

See which artist is up next in the queue

Personalized radio based off existing queue

Option to stream on 3 mobile devices

Service:

Rdio

Napster

Zune Pass

Price:

$4.99/month on desktop web; $9.99 on mobile

$5/month web-only; $10 mobile and web

$15/month

Free sample:

7 days

7 days

14 days

Type of streaming:

On-demand

On-demand

On-demand

What you pay for:

Unlimited song access, sync mobile to desktop

Unlimited song access

Unlimited access, 10 free downloads per month

Mobile reach:

iOS, Android, BlackBerry

iOS, Android, BlackBerry

WP7, Zune Marketplace

Unique Features:

Can be used on Sonos and Roku

Military discount of 30% off subscription services

Option to keep 10 downloads per month