Best Buy announces own Music Cloud service

It seems like everyone has their heads in the clouds these days. With a growing emphasis on synchronizing media purchases and applications on multiple mobile devices and computers, retailer Best Buy is launching Music Cloud.

The service is available for devices powered by Apple's iOS, Google's Android, and Research In Motion's BlackBerry operating systems and requires downloading software that enables music streaming.

The desktop app copies libraries and playlists from iTunes on a home computer and puts them in an account to be accessed on multiple mobile devices. It's powered by Catch Media's Play Anywhere service.

"With Best Buy Music Cloud, your digital music lives in one place but you access it from wherever you are," according to the Best Buy web site. "Enjoy all your music when you're at a friend's house, in the car, on the bus, walking to work ... virtually anywhere."

"You can store your favorite songs and playlists for when you're offline," it adds. "You can select just a single song, a playlist, or even an artist, allowing you to continue listening when you don't have coverage."

The premium version is available for $3.99 and, a demo version is available with 30-second playbacks of your songs.

Best Buy's Music Cloud comes on the heels of Apple rolling out iCloud to synchronize media purchases across computers and its mobile devices. iCloud was the major announcement by CEO Steve Jobs at Apple's Worldwide Developers Conference this month. Google and Amazon.com have also launched cloud music services.

Earlier this month, at the E3 conference, Best Buy announced a Reward Zone Gamers Club that offers points toward purchases.

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