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Byword Japan alter from monety


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I’ve been watching my clients — and myself — these past two years around the experience of charging fees, asking for payment, suggesting folks re-enroll in their programs, etc., and here’s what I’ve found …

Very few people like asking for money, and no one finds it easy — we universally hate it.

Why?

Because asking for money brings up thousands of insecurities and doubts. We’re scared to look money in the face, command it, control it, and to put ourselves out there. Asking for fair compensation means putting a formal stake in the ground about where we stand in a value equation. And most are simply too unclear about their own worthiness to do that.

Folks tell me that when they ask for money from clients or customers, questions swim inside their heads about their value, impact, and “appeal.” They fear that asking for money is the opposite of being “pleasing” to people, and will be a huge turn off. (For a fascinating discussion around if we should worry about what other people think of us, see Jonathan Fields’s recent post “What Other People Think IS Your Business.”)

In tough times like these, consultants, coaches, practitioners and entrepreneurs struggle hard to stand up for what they want/deserve in compensation or fees/prices, fearing no one will pay. And in the end, many aren’t sure themselves what their services are worth.

At the root of this money challenge are shame, doubt and insecurity: Am I good enough? How can I put a value on what I offer? Will there be enough people to pay this? Will they come back? Did they think my work was a good value? How do I fare against the competition? Did I give them great results?

In exploring the question of money with coaches and consultants who are highly financially successful and charging upwards of $400 an hour with ease, I’ve observed these five traits:

1) They have tapped into a large pool of potential clients who can easily pay their fees.

2) They’ve had prior high-level business experience and success that contributes to their sense of worth and value.

3) They’re very well-boundaried — they know where they end and others begin, and are clear about how they stack up against the competition.

4) They focus on business development continually — they understand the power of networking and building a supportive referral network.

5) Most are men.

I’ve observed in my research that men in general have greater access to a sense of “entitlement” — they believe they deserve the fees they’ve set and don’t tend to agonize or apologize about what they are worth.

Women on the other hand have been culturally trained to think less hierarchically and more about connection, equality, and empathy. Midlife women in particular simply have deeper challenges than men in standing up and speaking up about what value they bring and how they excel and stand apart from the competition. That said, for women to be successful entrepreneurs, consultants, practitioners and small business owners, they must find new ways to strengthen their ability to authoritatively command the fees they deserve.

While asking for fair compensation remains challenging for me, I’ve created greater success this year only after figuring out beyond a reasonable doubt what I feel my services are worth. I didn’t make the numbers up — I conducted diligent, open-hearted research — with clients, competition, experts, role models, the marketplace, etc. I asked my clients how they assessed the value of our work together, and the impact it made in their lives. And I left my ego at the door when these conversations occurred.

Further, I faced the powerful realization that certain professional endeavors — such as being well-known in the media — don’t necessarily bring you clients who can pay your fees. I’ve learned (and teach my clients) that you’ll be sorely disappointed in your practice or business if you don’t figure out: 1) who your ideal client is, 2) what your optimal method and model of generating income/revenue is, and 3) how you can continually find more clients you love to serve who can pay you what you deserve. In the end, you need to determine new, sure-fire methods to generate more success doing the work you love.

The reality is that for most, asking for money IS hard, but it gets easier when we become crystal clear about what we’re worth and how we’re exceptional at what we do. Once we know in our hearts and minds what to charge, then it’s time to speak up and ask for it without reservation.

Curious about your thoughts — do you find asking for money in your practice or business hard, and if so, what makes it easier for you?

I’ve been watching my clients — and myself — these past two years around the experience of charging fees, asking for payment, suggesting folks re-enroll in their programs, etc., and here’s what I’ve found …

Very few people like asking for money, and no one finds it easy — we universally hate it.

Why?

Because asking for money brings up thousands of insecurities and doubts. We’re scared to look money in the face, command it, control it, and to put ourselves out there. Asking for fair compensation means putting a formal stake in the ground about where we stand in a value equation. And most are simply too unclear about their own worthiness to do that.

Folks tell me that when they ask for money from clients or customers, questions swim inside their heads about their value, impact, and “appeal.” They fear that asking for money is the opposite of being “pleasing” to people, and will be a huge turn off. (For a fascinating discussion around if we should worry about what other people think of us, see Jonathan Fields’s recent post “What Other People Think IS Your Business.”)

In tough times like these, consultants, coaches, practitioners and entrepreneurs struggle hard to stand up for what they want/deserve in compensation or fees/prices, fearing no one will pay. And in the end, many aren’t sure themselves what their services are worth.

At the root of this money challenge are shame, doubt and insecurity: Am I good enough? How can I put a value on what I offer? Will there be enough people to pay this? Will they come back? Did they think my work was a good value? How do I fare against the competition? Did I give them great results?

In exploring the question of money with coaches and consultants who are highly financially successful and charging upwards of $400 an hour with ease, I’ve observed these five traits:

1) They have tapped into a large pool of potential clients who can easily pay their fees.

2) They’ve had prior high-level business experience and success that contributes to their sense of worth and value.

3) They’re very well-boundaried — they know where they end and others begin, and are clear about how they stack up against the competition.

4) They focus on business development continually — they understand the power of networking and building a supportive referral network.

5) Most are men.

I’ve observed in my research that men in general have greater access to a sense of “entitlement” — they believe they deserve the fees they’ve set and don’t tend to agonize or apologize about what they are worth.

Women on the other hand have been culturally trained to think less hierarchically and more about connection, equality, and empathy. Midlife women in particular simply have deeper challenges than men in standing up and speaking up about what value they bring and how they excel and stand apart from the competition. That said, for women to be successful entrepreneurs, consultants, practitioners and small business owners, they must find new ways to strengthen their ability to authoritatively command the fees they deserve.

While asking for fair compensation remains challenging for me, I’ve created greater success this year only after figuring out beyond a reasonable doubt what I feel my services are worth. I didn’t make the numbers up — I conducted diligent, open-hearted research — with clients, competition, experts, role models, the marketplace, etc. I asked my clients how they assessed the value of our work together, and the impact it made in their lives. And I left my ego at the door when these conversations occurred.

Further, I faced the powerful realization that certain professional endeavors — such as being well-known in the media — don’t necessarily bring you clients who can pay your fees. I’ve learned (and teach my clients) that you’ll be sorely disappointed in your practice or business if you don’t figure out: 1) who your ideal client is, 2) what your optimal method and model of generating income/revenue is, and 3) how you can continually find more clients you love to serve who can pay you what you deserve. In the end, you need to determine new, sure-fire methods to generate more success doing the work you love.

The reality is that for most, asking for money IS hard, but it gets easier when we become crystal clear about what we’re worth and how we’re exceptional at what we do. Once we know in our hearts and minds what to charge, then it’s time to speak up and ask for it without reservation.

Curious about your thoughts — do you find asking for money in your practice or business hard, and if so, what makes it easier for you?

This epoch also saw Japan alter from being a feudal bund to having a call monety złote Kraków thriftiness and formerly larboard the Japanese with a slow Western influence.


Mainly recognised sultan internet


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You know how the Internet works, right? Of course you do: you’re a TechCrunch reader, a power user. You know what that “HTTP” means in your address bar (if you’re not using Chrome.) You know that behind the scenes, the Domain Name System translates your requests for domain names like techcrunch.com to numeric addresses like 76.74.254.121, and secure connections are encrypted by SSL. You know that web servers send HTML, the lingua franca of the Web, over the wires (or the air) to your computer, and that web developers write JavaScript to control what your browser does with it.

…Unless you’re actually a techie. In which case you probably already know that the above description — let’s call it the Classic Web — is increasingly completely false.

What follows is a little technical, but bear with me, I have a larger point. (Also, even if you’re not a techie yourself, you need to have some understanding of what today’s tech does, and how it does it, in order to make intelligent decisions.)

Why doesn’t Chrome show the iconic “http://” before web addresses any more? Because it, like Amazon’s Silk and soon Firefox, doesn’t necessarily use HTTP any more. Instead, where possible they use Google’s far-faster replacement, SPDY, which also lets servers push data to browsers, instead of having to wait for requests.

That Domain Name System? It’s increasingly actually DNSSEC, an extension which guards against the massive security holes in the original system.

And your so-called secure connections? Well, SSL was actually replaced by TLS some time ago, which fixed some security holes, but not the biggest: browsers automatically accept security certificates for any site from literally hundreds of different authorities, any of which can be, and often are, compromised. Yes, this is insane. The EFF’s Sovereign Keys initiative might eventually solve the problem; in the interim, Chrome is more secure than other browsers, because it lets site owners specify which certificates are OK.

(Do I sound like I’m telling you to use Chrome? Not exactly. I mostly use Firefox, because Chrome doesn’t support any equivalent of Firefox’s security- and sanity-enhancing NoScript plugin, and probably never will.)

As for JavaScript — sure, all browsers run it, but almost no developer writes pure JavaScript any more. Instead we use library frameworks like jQuery, which has more or less conquered the world, or use higher-level languages like CoffeeScript (which I dislike, for these among other reasons) or even Google’s contentious new language Dart, which both compiles to and is ultimately intended to replace JavaScript. Unfortunately, almost no one outside of Google seems to like it.

In Google’s defense, their new server-side language Go is widely admired — even though, ironically, it signally fails the “The name of your language makes it impossible to find on Google” test — and their Native Client tech is powerful and interesting. Alas, I can’t see any other browser supporting it anytime soon.

But at the end of the day, your browser is still mostly getting and rendering HTML, right? Don’t be so sure. For one thing, “vanilla” HTML is a smaller and smaller part of the average web page. For another, it’s increasingly HTML5, whatever that means.

What’s more, there’s an interesting trend towards web servers that serve no HTML at all. Battlefield 3′s “Battlelog” web site is pure JSON between client and server. My former co-worker Michael Dykman (whose co-workers generally, without provocation, suffixed his name with “the greatest programmer who ever lived”) has developed a pure XML/XSLT web framework, Gossamer: as its introductory rant says, “wouldn’t it be nice if we could handle page requests from web browsers with the same simple elegance the web service model provides?“

The Classic Web is beginning to look like a kludge. Mostly because it was. Slowly, fitfully, three-steps-forward-two-steps-back, the tech community is finally refining it into something more secure, streamlined, and powerful. The last time something like this happened was when AJAX support hit modern browsers. Non-techies don’t realize it, but it was that innovation which ushered in Flickr, Google Maps, and the whole Web 2.0 boom. I expect HTML5 — greatly aided by the little-known back-end iterations I’ve tried to itemize above — to have a similar effect on the web and everything we do there.

Including, maybe, the much-foretold, long-forestalled decline and fall of the Empires of Apps. But more on that in next week’s column…

Points clarified by commenters below: OK, so there’s no real evidence that the removal of HTTP from Chrome’s address bar is actually related to its use of SPDY. “No HTML at all” up above is too extreme: “no dynamically generated HTML” would be better, as the very first pageload still has to be HTML.

Points clarified by me: People can and do argue at some length about the semantic distinction between ‘pure’ and ‘vanilla’ JavaScript, but I maintain — with considerable confidence — that JS written with jQuery is qualitatively different in content and approach than ‘pure/vanilla’ JS. Last I checked, Chrome’s NotScript wasn’t a substitute for Firefox’s NoScript, as it worked by merely masking rather than stripping out JS on a site-by-site basis: alas, I can’t find a detailed technical analysis that compares the inner workings of the current versions.

Image credit: QbiT, Flickr.

But after Visentin gave up four goals on 17 shots and Wedgewood stopped all 10 shots he faced before the Swedes scored an empty-net goal, questions arose over which goalie was the most ready for the tournament.

Hay did say he plans to play both goalies in the tournament. That’s not unusual.

The backup often gets a game in the preliminary round against the weaker country promoted from the second-tier world championship, which would be Thursday’s game against Denmark.

“Both goalies feel, at least I feel that way right now, is that both goalies feel there’s confidence coming from me to them,” Hay said. “No matter who we play, no matter what time of the game it is, or against whoever, I think the goalies should have a lot of confidence.”

The U.S. meets Denmark in the later Pool A game in Edmonton. Latvia and Sweden open Pool B games in Calgary on Monday afternoon, followed by defending champion Russia versus Switzerland at night.

The top team in each pool earns byes to the semifinals. The second and third seeds cross over to meet in the quarter-finals.

Canada has won a medal in this tournament 13 straight years, including five gold from 2005 to 2009, and has played in the final every year for the last decade. Canada took silver the last two years.

Securing the bye to the semifinals provides rest and an extra day of preparation to the countries who earn them, but in recent tournaments, the bye hasn’t been that much of an advantage.

Three of the last four winners have come through a quarter-final — Canada in 2008, the U.S. in 2010 and Russia in 2011.

Canada opens against the Finns after beating them 3-1 in an exhibition game Dec. 19. Finland played hard in that game despite having just recently arrived in Canada.

“We were in that game,” Finnish coach Raimo Helminen said. “I don’t know if we can be better but I hope so (that) we can compete against the big favourite.”

Helminen, too, was secretive on the subject of his starting goalie. Chris Gibson, who plays for the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League’s Chicoutimi Sagueneens, was outstanding his two periods of the exhibition game against Canada.

Sam Aittokallio played the last period and the Colorado Avalanche prospect has the experience of playing one game in the tournament in Buffalo.

The Finns last won this tournament in 1998 and are looking for a bounce-back year after finishing sixth in Buffalo. They have six returning players, as well as a player who is considered the best one outside the NHL this season in Mikael Granlund.

The first-round pick (ninth overall) of the Minnesota Wild is a player Canada must pay attention to, says Hay.

“The Granlund line is a very talented line,” Hay said. “They’re very explosive and they’re the key I feel to their team and we have to make sure we limit their offensive opportunities.”

Canada went 2-1 in pre-tournament play. Visentin of the Niagara IceDogs made 22 saves in the exhibition games versus the Finns. The first-round pick of the Phoenix Coyotes is more conservative in his movements in net than the acrobatic Wedgewood.

Visentin was handed the starting job for the medal round in Buffalo and backstopped Canada to wins in the quarter-final and semifinal. Canada was leading 3-0 heading into the third period of the gold-medal game, but Russia scored five unanswered goals on Visentin to take the title.

He’s never shirked from addressing his role in the collapse. The maturity and experience he gained through that experience is considered valuable to Canada’s chances in this tournament.

“My mentality is the same as the team’s,” Visentin said Sunday. “We want to get better each and every day and once the tournament starts we need to bring our ‘A’ game every day so that’s what I’m going to do.”

Wedgwood, who plays for the Plymouth Whalers, stopped 24 of 25 shots in Canada’s 7-1 victory over Switzerland on Thursday. The third-round pick of the New Jersey Devils was a standout in selection camp.

“The coaches are going to make a decision they feel comfortable with and as a goalie you’ve got to deal with it,” Wedgewood said. “When you get your opportunity, take it.”

The Canadian team spent Christmas Eve at the home of Edmonton Oilers president of hockey operations Kevin Lowe and then received Christmas gifts from Hockey Canada back at their hotel.

“The last week has been fun, we worked on a lot, I think we got a lot better and we became closer as a team, but the tournament is finally here and the atmosphere is going to be great,” Canadian captain Jaden Schwartz said. “Finland is going to be a first tough contest for us so we’re real excited.”

All generally recognised chief states are on this list. Territories that are not essential, such as dependent territories, are listed one by one internet sosnowiec (in italics) or famed as included.


The school-book kia


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The Kia Ray may well be the ugliest EV I have seen in a long time. It’s boxy and square and makes the Prius look good if you ask me. Aside from the questionable looks of the car, it has some interesting features that make it stand out among the EV crowd. The coolest feature is the optional fast charge system that would charge the battery cells in only 25 minutes.

The boxy EV has a range of 84 miles, which will obviously depend on the driving conditions. Without that fast charge option, you will need six hours to charge the battery using 220V. The electric motor is a 50kW unit powering the front wheels. The beast will rocket from 0-62mph in 15.9 seconds.

The EV Ray has 123 lb-ft of torque, which as is common with electric cars is more torque than the 1.0L combustion engine powered flavor offers. Kia plans to build 2,500 of these little EVs. The catch is that they are all slated for government use in Korea so you won’t be able to get one.

[via Autoblog]


The school-book expresses most of the themes that would reprimand Forum KIA above Trimmer’s later works, such as her gravity on retaining venereal hierarchies


Extensive, this amounts to a corporate name, logo


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With the holiday season starting earlier and earlier each year it can be tough to maintain one’s festive cheer for such a long stretch. By the time Christmas rolls around, the mall has made us crazy, we’re manic from all the chocolates and cookies, there’s tinsel tangled permanently in our hair, and if we have to hear Justin Bieber sing about Mistletoe one more time, it’s not gonna end well. This is holiday burnout.

But the cure is just a click away: For anyone who’s feeling more Grinch-like than Kris Kringle, we’ve compiled a list of 10 things that will surely reignite your festive spirit and give you something to look forward to. By the time Christmas rolls around, you’ll be feeling as jolly as old St. Nick.

Think we missed something? Let us know in the comments below or send us a Tweet.

WASHINGTON — The chief executives of major companies are frequently blasted for their massive salaries, but new reports show that the heads of the nation’s largest nonprofit interest groups are earning similar paychecks.

The Huffington Post first reported last month that Tom Donohue, the CEO of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, earned $4.7 million in 2010. But according to an analysis published by Politico on Tuesday, Donohue’s salary still lags behind the pay earned by the heads of two other major lobbying groups.

Billy Tauzin, a former Republican congressman from Louisiana, served as the head of the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America for the first half of 2010. He topped Politico’s list by earning $11.6 million in that short period, a significant bump over the $4.6 million he earned in the same job in 2009.

Tauzin was followed by American Petroleum Institute CEO Jack Gerard, who made $6.4 million in 2010, coming in just ahead of Donohue. In all, none of the 10 highest earners among nonprofit CEOs made less than one million dollars that year.

While not earning as much as their colleagues who represent industry, many well-known political figures also pulled in sizeable paychecks. Influential conservative Grover Norquist, the head of Americans for Tax Reform, earned a small pay increase to $225,000 in 2010. John Podesta, the former Clinton chief of staff and recently retired head of the Center for American Progress, made $328,500.

Ivan Adler, a headhunter at executive search firm McCormick Group, told Politico that the salaries defy the logic of the current tough economy. “This is a parallel universe to the rest of the country,” he said. “We don’t make anything in Washington; we manufacture nothing but ideas, so a recession here doesn’t affect things as much as it does in the real world.”

In extensive, this amounts to a corporate title, logo (logotype and/or logogram), and supporting devices commonly assembled within a stipulate of guidelines. These guidelines be in the saddle how the sameness is applied and ensure approved crayon identyfikacja wizualna firm palettes, typefaces, epoch layouts and other such methods of maintaining visual continuity and manufacturer cognizance across all tangible manifestations of the brand. These guidelines are normally formulated into a include of tools called corporate sameness manuals.


Papers objects are inclined as gifts


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The gift of software may not seem like the coolest thing to give a loved one, but think about it like this: Those invisible 1s and 0s can potentially affect a person’s life and productivity in significant ways whenever he or she’s using a computer. Seems like a potentially great gift opportunity to us! We’ve got you covered with our favorite giftable apps, whether that special someone uses Windows or Mac OS X. Plus, we’ve got some printable cards you can hand out so you’ve still got something physical to give.

Software isn’t exactly the sexiest of all gifts, but it can actually be a great thing to give. There are a lot of apps out there that can make your friends’ life easier or more enjoyable, that they might not pay for themself—and that’s where you come in. Here are some of our favorite paid Windows apps that fit the bill.

Note: Giving a digital download isn’t exactly the most dramatic gift, so we put together nice images for each app on this list that you can provide along with the download/serial number/whatever. Just right-click on any image to save a larger version.

Apps Under $30

Trillian Pro

Trillian is one of our favorite IM clients for Windows, and the pro version is where it really shines. Not only does it remove all those annoying ads, but all its cross-platform majesty really starts to click: you can view all your chat logs in the cloud, continue a conversation on one machine from another machine instantly, and more. Not to mention you get priority email support from the Trillian team if something ever goes wrong, which is great to have on hand. If you know an IM fiend who’s all over a number of platforms—whether it’s Windows, Mac, Android, or iPhone—Trillian Pro is an inexpensive but great piece of software to give.

Buy Trillian Pro ($12 per year)

When fabric objects are inclined as gifts, in divers cultures they are traditionally packaged in some manner. Because example, in Western culture, gifts are day in and day out wrapped in wrapping paper and accompanied by a contribution note which may note the occasion, the beneficiary Prezent name, and the giver’s name. In Chinese culture, red wrapping connotes luck.


The tender Space of Mexico


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release of the historic county of Sussex, which has its roots in the antique field of the South Saxons, who established themselves there in the fifth century AD, after the departure of the Romans. Archaeological remains are lavish, strikingly in the upland areas. The extent angielski Tychy point of view on the sail has also meant that there were scads invaders, including the Romans and later the Normans. Earlier industries include included fishing, iron-making, and the wool marketing, all of which suffer with declined, or been lost completely.


The present Space of Mexico


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Apple’s iTunes might be the undisputed leader in digital music, but Google’s new Google Music service is poised to win the fight in the long run.

Google Music, which launched to the public today, is a free service that allows you to upload your digital music library to the cloud so that it can be played anywhere with a viable internet connection. The search engine giant also added the ability to purchase music through its Android Market, which makes it a direct competitor to iTunes.

Earlier this week, Apple preemptively launched a new “cloud” service of its own, called iTunes Match. For $25 a year, the service will allow you unlimited downloads on all tracks that you’ve previously purchased or are already in your library at no additional cost. You can download and sync all your music across all iOS devices (iPhone, iPod Touch, iPad, Desktop running iTunes software). Other than that, Apple didn’t add anything new to iTunes in regards to music.

Up to speed? Great. Now I can explain why Google Music is possibly the biggest threat iTunes has ever encountered, and why it’s likely to become the music service of choice for most people in the future.

Music Distribution & Artist Hub

Right now, the only legitimate way for copyrighted music to get recognized through iTunes is if the record label that represents the music strikes a deal with Apple to have it appear within the iTunes store. There are lots of small and relatively unknown artists represented in the store, but nowhere near the number of people in the country who seriously consider themselves musicians — each with their own library of original songs. In the past, it didn’t make financial sense for Apple to add these unknowns without some kind of guarantee that they would make money.

Google Music, however, has taken the opposite approach. Its Artist Hub allows virtually anyone with the rights to their own music to sell their songs through the Android Market for a nominal $25 fee. Instead of turning away musicians with little marketable value, Google Music provides them with the necessary tools to turn their passion into a profitable business. It’s very similar to the early days of blogging when Google rolled out AdSense.

The sheer potential to turn your musical work into a viable business is going to drive any serious musician to set up shop on Google Music. With that kind of music library, all Google has to do is sit back and wait for the talented ones to get popular. However, “sitting back” isn’t actually Google’s strategy, which brings me to my next point…

Music Discovery & Promotion

Having one of the largest networks of up-and-coming music artists doesn’t do much if people never unearth the good stuff. Until now, the only way to discover good music depended mostly on the artist and/or a large company that spent money getting the word out about it.

Google Music is designed to change that. First of all the service, it integrates with Google’s social network Google+. If you allow it, purchases and listening activity can appear within Google+’s news feed, prompting exposure of songs to your intimate social circle (where you have lots of influence).

Also, when you purchase a new song or album through the Android Market, it enables all of your friends to listen to those purchases  — in their entirety — once. It’s bound to spur digital music sales, or at the very least some new exposure to artists you otherwise never would have heard about.

The discovery functionality in iTunes pales in comparison to Google’s. It does have services like the failure that is Ping as well as the ability to share the music libraries of others around you, but both of those methods require you to out of your way to find something new.

Music Store Selection and Licensing

One area that iTunes greatly excels beyond Google Music is the ability that it gives you to purchase a digital download of the studio version of “Sussudio” by Phil Collins. This is because Google failed to reach an agreement with Warner Music Group to sell the song, meaning none of the music that Warner Music owns the rights to is available for sale in the Android Market. (You can get around this in some cases, because some of those tracks, the more popular ones, are available on compilation albums.)

Apart from “Sussudio,” the fact that Apple has a greater number of tracks available from all the major record labels isn’t actually much of a win for Apple. If Google Music does rise to popularity, people will figure out a way to add their music to the service, making Warner Music the only real loser.

In the future, Google will have the advantage because the popular artists of tomorrow will already be licensed and available for purchase. Apple’s iTunes, on the other hand, will have to play catch up. If Apple’s stronghold over music devices ever weakens, people will have little reason to keep using iTunes over Google Music.

Limitations

Both services aren’t without their limitations. Google Music caps the number of songs you can upload to 20,000, while iTunes Match allows you to upload 25,000. I did find that many tracks from well-known artists in my music library weren’t recognized by iTunes Match, and thus, are unable for unlimited download. This is certainly a pain in the ass since I paid money to gain access to my entire collection of songs. VentureBeat’s Sean Ludwig had a similar experience when he tested the service earlier this week.

Alternately, I can’t download any songs from my personal collection that I’ve uploaded to Google Music, (only tracks purchased through the Android Market can be downloaded for use on other devices.)

And since I’ve already been managing all the files in my music collection up until now, it’s not that much of a stretch for me to continue doing that in the event that I want to put my collection on other devices/platforms. If you see that as a major setback for Google Music, I’m not sure why. It’s not as if you spent any money to use it — something that can’t be said for iTunes Match.

Conclusion

Apple has dominated the digital music market for almost a decade, but the addition of iTunes Match doesn’t do much to secure the company’s lead in the future. The ability to download tracks rather than stream them through multiple devices seems like a step backwards in the age of constant connectivity.

And while Apple is missing the opportunity to broaden its music service to include the entire spectrum of digital artists, Google is more than obliged to step up. If the Google Music Artist Hub does take off, it’ll give the search giant the fuel to eventually become the leader in digital music. Why? Because unlike Apple, Google will already have music from future rock stars, pop artist sensations and break-out alternative bands. By the time that music makes it to iTunes, it’ll already be in second place for many people.

Google opened its new music store to all comers in the US this week, touting its partnerships with music labels and indie musicians, and its broad reach thanks to the Android Market. The new store has millions of songs for sale, but whether it’s a game changer, serious competition for iTunes and Amazon MP3, or the best online music store out there is another question entirely. Let’s take a look at each service based on its features.

Each music store is a little different. This showdown is all about the music stores that these companies offer—not their respective players, applications, or services. We can’t help but mention them in terms of usability and integration with the store and the user experience, but we’re going to try and focus on the features of the stores and steer clear of the bugs or quirks of each player.

Google Music: The New Kid on the Block is Perfect for Android Faithful, Indie Music Lovers, and Free Music Fanatics

Google Music has been around for a while, but Wednesday’s launch of the music store put Google in direct competition with Apple and Amazon (among others.). The new music store has been added to the Android Market so you can access it on the web or any Android device. The web player is still as sharp as ever, and combined with Google’s Magnifier music blog gives you multiple points of entry to download great free music you’ve never heard, and shop for albums you’ve been waiting for.

Who Google Music Is For

  • Bleeding edge music fans and indie music lovers. People with playlists populated with bands they’ll be happy to tell you you’ve never heard of. Google’s velvet-gloved approach to independent artists was on display at Wednesday’s event.
  • Android faithful. Android fans will get the most benefit from the music store. After all, it will be pre-installed on every Android device, and songs you buy or add for free from the music store won’t count against your 20,000 song limit.
  • Music fans on a budget. Budget-conscious music fans who already have large libraries will appreciate the ability to upload a ton of songs absolutely free, and the plethora of free music already available to add to your Google Music account.
  • Google+ users. Fans of Google’s burgeoning social network will adore the ability to share your purchases with your circles. The Google+ integration means that after buying an album, it’ll make sense to share it so your friends can listen and let you know what they think. Even better, create a “Music Lovers” circle on Google+ where you all trade music suggestions and post your purchases.

Pros

Google Music’s biggest perk is that aside from the songs themselves, it’s free. Accounts and storage for 20,000 songs is free, as is additional storage for any free or purchased songs. The music store boasts a 13 million track catalog of songs from three of the four major labels and thousands of indie artists. Tracks come in DRM-free 320kbps mp3 files, and you don’t need to download another app to get access to your purchases. They’re automatically added to your Google Music account (you can download them there), and are available instantly in the web player and on your Android device.

Indie music lovers and independent musicians will love Google’s new music store. After all, $25 for the Artist’s Hub gives you access to 200 million Android devices, not to mention the Google Music users who use the web player on their desktops or iOS devices, and 45 million Google+ users. No other music store has embraced indie music the way Google has, and that’s huge, not just for indie musicians and fans, but DJs, basement bands, and anyone else who wants to get their name and their music out there. Hear that? It’s the last nail being driven into MySpace’s coffin.

Google’s music store is pretty compelling, especially for Android users (although the web player on iOS is slick too), prefer webapps to desktop players, or own a lot of music already they’d like to take with them.

Cons

One drawback to Google Music is that it’s only available in the United States. It’s unfortunate, but it’s a reality of dealing with the music industry in different parts of the world. The agreement that works for labels in the US may not be the agreement that works for the labels in the UK, or in Australia. These things take time, and Google decided to play on its home turf first.

Speaking of labels, the gaping hole in the music store where Warner Music should be is unfortunate. One Google rep on-stage at the event casually mentioned that “other labels are welcome if they choose to join,” clearly a statement designed to both point the finger at Warner for missing the bus and assure viewers that Warner should be along shortly. Here’s hoping they are.

The only other minus we could find is pricing. Songs are competitively priced, but in more than a few cases they’re not the best price. This makes sense, since Amazon and Apple have history and a bit more bargaining power, but we live in a time where the difference between a $0.99 track and a $1.29 track can mean a lost sale for the more expensive store.

Amazon MP3: The Pioneer of DRM-Free, Cheap Music Soldiers On Despite the Competition

Long before Google got into music, and before Apple was willing to remove DRM from purchased songs, Amazon MP3 came pre-installed on Android phones and allowed you to download DRM-free mp3s and copy them to any of your devices. Today, Amazon boasts a huge catalog, offers free cloud storage for your purchased music, and continuously beats the competition on price.

Who Amazon MP3 Is For

  • Music fans who have to have the absolute lowest price. Amazon MP3′s pricing is often the lowest across all of the major music stores, especially for popular artists and new releases. Amazon often doesn’t bother highlighting popular artists the way other stores do: they assume you’ll search for what you want. Instead, the front page of the MP3 store is populated with “Albums under $5,” and “$0.69 songs.” They want to be the value player, and it works—as long as you’re not interested in cloud storage.
  • Bargain hunters who live for daily deals and special events. A day without a discounted album on Amazon MP3 or a refreshed list of completely free music is a day without sunshine. Amazon may not go out of the way to highlight its free music the way Google does, but that doesn’t mean it’s not there.
  • Amazon shopaholics and Prime members. Frequent customers are occasionally treated to $5 credits to Amazon MP3 purchases after a purchase, and those credits are pretty hard to pass up, especially considering how far your money goes at Amazon MP3.
  • Kindle Fire Owners. The Kindle Fire, even though it’s new, is probably one of the few devices that provides a real integrated experience for Amazon’s various services. Sure, there’s an Amazon MP3 app for Android, and it’s an okay player, but the user experience leaves a little to be desired, and the store isn’t well integrated.

Pros

Amazon MP3 is overall the most affordable music store available, a feat considering its 16 million track catalog. The store has music from all four major labels, and it is a great place to look if you’re searching for specific songs, special releases, and EPs that the other stores don’t have. Purchases come as 256kbps variable bitrate MP3s without DRM, and can be automatically added to your Amazon Cloud Drive. When you do add them, the space they take doesn’t count against your overall storage limit.

It doesn’t hurt that Amazon MP3 is already on many Android devices. Before the Google music store existed, it was the only good way you could browse, buy, and download music directly to your Android phone. It’s still a great option, and Amazon hasn’t sworn allegiance to any one mobile OS. Amazon’s play as the music store with one of the biggest catalogs of popular music at super-low prices makes it an attractive option, or at least a place to stop and check prices before you buy from another store.

Cons

One of the biggest problems with the Amazon music store is the Amazon Downloader. It works in most situations, but when it doesn’t, it sucks badly, and the fact that you have to download an app to download the songs that you just purchased at Amazon is a nuisance at best and a troubleshooting nightmare at worst. Of course, you can always just have your music dropped into your Amazon Cloud Drive, but let’s be honest, given the pricing and storage limits, is anyone actually paying for Cloud Drive?

We also really have to ding Amazon a bit for the quality of its player. The web player is no real joy to use, and the fact that the app is only available for Android leaves iOS users somewhat out of the action, which sucks. It means that iPhone and iPad owners who want to buy from the Amazon MP3 store have to buy, download, and then add their music to iTunes if they want it on multiple devices: no Cloud Player for iOS users unless they use the special iPad-optimized webapp.

Finally, if you’re an indie music fan or love independent artists and labels, your mileage may vary with Amazon MP3. There are indie artists and labels at Amazon, but the focus is clearly on more popular musicians and major labels. Also, Amazon’s music store is only available in the US and the UK. If you like to share music with friends, Amazon’s social features are limited to Twitter and Facebook buttons to tell your friends about your purchase, and if you like to preview before you buy, you can listen to a 30 second clip of the song – a far cry from iTunes’ and Google’s 90-second previews.

iTunes: The Biggest Digital Music Store Still Thrives on Its Ecosystem

Regardless of what you think about Apple or the iTunes software, there’s no debating that the iTunes Music Store transformed the way we enjoy music. It heralded the end of widespread piracy and proved to the music labels that you don’t have to treat music fans like criminals to convince them to buy music. With the launch of iTunes Match and iCloud, the iTunes Music Store just got much more attractive.

Who iTunes Is For

  • New release hunters. iTunes is the juggernaut in the digital music space for a reason. It has agreements with all of the major labels, and new launches and special editions often appear on the iTunes first.
  • Cloud haters and organization freaks. iCloud and iTunes Match exist, sure, but by default all of your music purchases are downloaded to your computer via iTunes, and are stored locally. If you like taking your music with you or don’t care for web players or cloud services, iTunes still delivers that “click to buy and to download” experience that makes you feel like you’re getting something tangible. Plus, your music comes from a single source, with tags, album art, and metadata intact, can be organized in a single app (even if it is iTunes) and if it’s lost, you can—with strings attached—redownload it.
  • iOS device owners. Let’s face it, the reason there’s no Amazon MP3 app for iOS is because Apple has no desire to allow a competing music store on its devices. If you want your Amazon MP3 purchases on your iOS device, you’ll have to downlaod them and add them to iTunes. The same applies for Google Music – the store is built-in to the Android Market, so don’t expect that on your iPhone anytime soon. The iTunes Music Store, on the other hand, is right there, full of music that you can buy and download immediately. Once you do, it’s synced to iCloud.
  • People who need fast, easy, and cheap. iTunes’ dominance isn’t only due to its closed ecosystem with the iPhone and iPod. It’s also the fact that iTunes is dead simple to use and shop from. The iTunes’ music store plus jukebox experience is still very popular with a lot of people. Attitudes may be changing however, and fewer people want to install iTunes just to shop for music, but right now it offers a seamless union between the music you already own and new music you can purchase.

Pros

iTunes is clearly the best option for people invested in the Apple ecosystem. The music selection is massive—larger than any of the other stores—with over 20 million tracks in the catalog from all four major labels and scores of independents. Even if you don’t have an iOS device, it’s a great music store with a broad depth of music at solid prices. The days where everything was $0.99 are over, but the vast majority of songs are still around that mark, with older songs and releases by independent musicians often less than that. iTunes also has a huge selection of comedy, spoken-word, latin music, and other genres with narrower appeal, along with “sub-stores” created by specific companies (like Starbucks) and playlists by celebrities to feature music they enjoy.

Tracks can be previewed for 90 seconds, and purchased songs come as 256kbps DRM-free AACs. From there it’s automatically added to your music collection, albums get their own playlists, and the song is added to your “Recently added” or “Downloaded” playlists. Combined with an iOS device or iCloud, iTunes is still a great music store and holistic music experience. Without either of those however, it’s a huge music store where you’ll have no trouble finding something you like at a decent price.

Cons

For as big as its catalog is and as deep its library is, iTunes hasn’t really changed or improved in any meaningful way in years. You don’t necessarily want to fix what isn’t broken, and we get that iCloud and iTunes Match will give iOS users a new way to back up and access their music on other devices (even though iTunes Match doesn’t stream and has no web player) but to get the most from these services you have to be fully wrapped up in Apple’s ecosystem. Even freeing your music from iTunes if you prefer to listen to it on your non iOS device or in another music player can be an irritating process. Possible, but an unnecessary pain.

For as great as its shopping experience is, iTunes loses points for its lackluster social experience, which consists entirely of Ping—Apple’s half-assed social network that no one really uses (unless they’re using it to post to Twitter.) Plus, even though Apple bought and killed LaLa back in 2009, we have yet to see a meaningful web component to iTunes. There’s iTunes Preview, but frankly, it’s awful. Where other music stores are integrating social networks to help you discover music and giving you more ways to enjoy the music you buy anywhere, iTunes is spinning its wheels. That’s fine for now, but it won’t be forever.

The Verdict: Which Music Store Deserves Your Money?

If you’ve followed along with us so far or you’ve skipped to the end to see which service you should buy your music from, the answer is—as always—that it depends on what kind of music lover you are:

  • Google Music is best for people who would say “I need access to the music I already own everywhere I go,” or “I’m a huge indie music fan,” and people who are onboard and comfortably seated on the Android train.
  • Amazon MP3 is best for bargain hunters who don’t want to buy elsewhere before checking for a better deal and want the best possible deal. It’s also best for people who still aren’t sure about this whole Google Music thing and have Android devices. Plus, if you don’t trust Google and can’t stand Apple, well, here you are.
  • iTunes is best for people wrapped up in Apple’s cozy blanket of walled-off products and services. Getting in from the outside with another service is a herculean feat, one that’s really not worth it if you have all the music you want to buy in iTunes at good prices and you own an iOS device. You may want to check Amazon for better prices now and again, and then import the songs to iTunes.

Everyone Else: Zune Marketplace, eMusic, and the Others

Apple, Amazon, and Google aren’t the only players. There are still a lot of smaller, independent music stores out there, even if most of them are struggling to get by. Bandcamp is a great indie music store that lets artists sell directly to their fans, and EMusic is still kicking around with a 13 million song catalog and DRM-free mp3s. Subscription-only services like the Zune Music Store, Napster, and even Rhapsody often sell individual tracks and walk the line between a la carte and subscription-only.

For music lovers who don’t mind renting their music instead of owning it, it may make financial sense to sign up for all-you-can-eat plans where you get tons of music for a monthly fee. With the Zune store, each month you used to get to keep some of the songs you’ve rented, so it’s a little of both worlds. They may not have the selection or mobile and cloud features that the big guys do, but these services are worth mentioning because they cater to specific markets or often go out of their way to be platform agnostic.

A Nod to Streaming Music Services

Speaking of renting music, no look at online music stores would be complete without mentioning the explosion of streaming and cloud-based music services, some of which work with music you own, and others that exist purely in the cloud. Contrary to traditional music stores, with these services you’re paying for regular access to a service’s music library. You don’t own anything, and you don’t even rent the songs themselves—you just pay to listen to them whenever you like.

Streaming music services are trendy, and many of them even allow you to cache songs offline to simulate the feeling of owning your music. Most of them are platform agnostic, and offer apps, webapps, and tools for every OS. Even so, most people use them in addition to—not a replacement for—a music store that lets them buy or listen to their own music. That may change as they grow in popularity.

Which music store excites you the most? Where will you be spending your money? Perhaps you prefer a different store we haven’t mentioned, or you’re giving up on buying music entirely and going the streaming route instead. Whatever you think, let us know in the comments below.

You can reach Alan Henry, the author of this post, at alan@lifehacker.com, or better yet, follow him on Twitter or Google+.

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