Cloud based computing is getting tons of hype these days, both positive and negative. There’s the convenience of having everything in the cloud, everywhere, any time, but there’s also the fear of data loss and unsecure data. One web-based service where both of these issues are on the low is Grooveshark, the free online music discovery and playback service. The main reason you don’t need to worry is simply because it’s not your data, it’s just music that happens to be sitting in the cloud, and secondly, it’s just music. Similarly to Spotify, Grooveshark is entirely web-based and and with similar to music search engines such as Skreemr or the now-deceased Seeqpod with the awesome addition of a full fledged feature-set tacked on in a luscious interface. I couldn’t tell you which of the services is better, since living in Canada it’s not exactly easy to get going with Spotify as at the moment. Just like Hulu, Spotify it working slowly as it branches in to new countries in order to ensure everything they do is not only legal but has the okay from the media distributors. Currently Spotify is exclusive to a few European countries. Where Grooveshark wins out is being available internationally. In fact as far as I’m aware Grooveshark does not restrict access to any countries, but I could very well be wrong. With all the legal issues aside, Grooveshark is here now and hopefully here to stay.

Spotify has had their iPhone application sitting in the App Store for months now, and after repeated attempts, Grooveshark was tired of being shot down by Apple. Luckily for jailbroken iPhone users, Grooveshark made what I consider to be a rather smart call (considering how long they spent in a rejection loop) and released their iPhone application on the jailbreak scene. If you’re included in the vast majority of those who don’t jailbreak, be sure to check out my article on some wicked jailbreak apps and extensions to see if I can sway you at all. Otherwise, be aware that the only way to get this app running on your device is through jailbreaking.

Any jailbroken user will know you can grab Grooveshark from Cydia which is more or less an ‘app store’ on the jailbreak scene. The one catch with this application is that (at the moment) you must be a VIP member with Grooveshark. The good news with this catch is it’s only 3 bucks a month, which is a pretty sweet deal if you consider what it includes. The application has a fairly similar feature lineup to the web application, including a song queue to get songs lined up for playback as well as an awesome radio feature, which is a user-driven flow of music related to what you’re listening to. This radio feature is similar to iTunes’ Genius recommendations except it’s much more streamlined where it requires no user interaction and you get to hear the whole song, not some sad 30 second clip. Favorites and playlists are included in the application as well to keep your music organized and at your fingers.

As Grooveshark is a web-based service, it’s serving you up tunes from the cloud which can be pretty brutal on your connection or data plan, especially if there’s a few tracks in your favorites you stream every time you launch the app. Luckily, Grooveshark comes with an option to download the song for offline use, so if Grooveshark notices you don’t have a connection it’ll kick you into offline mode and you’ve still got your tunes right on your device. The offline mode can even be enabled manually with the slide of a toggle, and the best part is Grooveshark lets you use pretty much the entirety of your device storage to store offline songs. Pretty sick, eh? Grooveshark shines with a fairly delicious (and in some areas custom) interface that’s a joy to browse. Although the majority of the UX is pretty slick, somebody seriously screwed up with the song options which are all single buttons gray framed with white backgrounds on pinstripes. Gross. Beyond that, the jailbreak experience allows Grooveshark to integrate nicely with the system with the usual lockscreen album art and jailbreak extension Music Controls was quick to add support for it as well so you can continue playback (and control it) while the app runs in the background, just like iPod.app.

Hopefully we’ll see Grooveshark transformed in to the music subscription service so many of us dream of as we deal with the current state of digital music and its refusal to drop dated business models. For now, Grooveshark is here, it’s awesome, and it’s pretty much free.