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We're A Playin' With Play, a blog dedicated to providing you with tips, tricks and other helpful information to get the most out of Google Play, or more specifically, the music application part of the service. We are not affiliated with Google, Google Play or any of their properties. In addition to posting general advice for using the Google Play music application's basic features, we'll also provide tips for organizing your audio files, so that perhaps even years from now you will still have access to your hard earned MP3 collection. A lot of our advice can be applied to any service that stores your music in the cloud, such as the Amazon Cloud Player and iCloud, You can even use some of our tips to organize your personal home media server files or MP3 player. If you are wondering why we are focusing on the Google Play music application specifically, today is your special day, as we cover this exact subject in the very next paragraph of this article!

Why are we focusing on the Google Play music application specifically?

Price and Space: For the time being, the amount of space offered for storing audio files at the all time low price of free is hard to beat. 20,000 songs will accommodate most music lovers, though some would enjoy the option of paying for more space if it were available. In the meantime we'll help you make the best of what is allotted. The price also beats the free offerings of the two services mentioned above, each of them only offering 5GB of space.

A chart found on the website anythingbutipod.com states that 8GB of three minute MP3s encoded at 320 kbps (the standard bitrate that the music uploader converts non-MP3s to) amounts to about 1111 songs. The Google Play music application lets you store an additional 18,889 songs. No longer will you be deleting "Revolution 9" from your copy of The White Album due to space restrictions (not that we would!). None of the music added to your collection through Google's music store, free and purchased, count towards your overall quota for songs. It is completely possible to have more than 20,000 songs by augmenting your collection with these tracks.

Longevity: What's the point of making sure that each and every one of your MP3 files are properly tagged and searchable if they are spread throughout several different flash drives, MP3 players and computers that could crash, fail or disappear at any time? You only have to upload and tag your music collection to Google Play once, and it will theoretically be there until the end of time. Google is obviously in it for the long haul, though it is wise to be a tiny bit cautious, as some services such as iGoogle,  Wave and Video were axed when they fell into disuse or didn't gain traction. Some of you with Gmail accounts from its beta period can vouch for the usefulness of a Google service with longevity.

A lot of time can be invested in completing and organizing your audio file collection, and nobody wants to waste their time with futile tasks. However, if the Google Play music app is ever discontinued, it can be safely assumed that they will provide a way to retrieve your uploaded files, all of your hard tagging work still in place.

Availability: It is also convenient that your music collection is available on most devices that are capable of streaming music from a website. This is obviously not a feature unique to Google's music app, though it's a welcome feature nonetheless. Some of the mobile app versions of the player can cache the music to the local storage system on your phone or device, so that if you lose your internet connection or get poor reception, you still have access to some of your collection. If all else fails, you can download your music twice through the web interface, or as many times as you need through the Music Manager software.

In a perfect world, the Google Play music application will blossom into the most awsome cloud music file storage system known to humankind. The Instant Mix function will always create playlists of bunnies and rainbows and the Thumbs Up button will send bouqets of roses and whiskey to your favorite artists with every click. In the meantime, it's pretty good, and if it gets better it will be fantastic. If useful features (or MP3s) start disappearing, we'll be there to take notice. As long as the service stays popular and useful it should be a safe bet.