Introduction
| At a Glance | |
|---|---|
| Product | Mougg Learn more |
| Summary | Cloud-based streaming service for your own music |
| Pros | • Easy, good looking web interface • Sets up quickly • Streams music in original quality |
| Cons | • More expensive than competition • Not integrated with many mobile devices • Iffy long-term viability |
Mougg is a newcomer to the cloud music streaming industry. It is a no-nonsense, single purpose service. You upload your music, and it’s now available anywhere and anytime, as long as you have an internet connection.
The simplicity of Mougg transfers to its account types. Everyone has full access to the service, and you pay for the amount of storage you want. Plan options currently available include:
• A free 1GB account
• 10 GB for $2.99 a month
• 40 GB for $4.99 a month
• 100 GB for $7.00 a month
Unfortunately Mougg doesn’t display its pricing information until you sign up, which is kind of sleazy.
Setup, In Use
Mougg presents itself simply in its browser-based interface. Uploading music and playback is accomplished through the website, along with adding and editing playlists. There are no clients or anything to install.
Figure 1: Mougg’s Home Screen
“Setup” is a matter of signing up for a free 1 GB account. Once you have signed up, you are automatically logged in and are ready to rock and roll (or whatever you music choice might be). From there you can go ahead and start uploading music.
The player itself is implemented in Javascript, which means the player works on iOS, Android and other devices that are waiting for Flash support. But Flash is required to upload music. So what Mougg giveth, Flash taketh away.
Playback is as good as what you upload. Music sounds as good as it does when played locally, as all Mougg does is progressively download, i.e. stream, your music files to your player.
Access, Support, Security
Figure 2: Mougg’ uploading music for playback.
Access is accomplished primarily through the website. There is an Android app available for music playback, but that’s it for mobile device support. The opening graphic above, taken from Mougg’s site, implies that iOS support is "Coming Soon". But, it ain’t here now.
Since Mougg’s playback is Javascript-based, I could bring it up on my iPad & iPhone and play tunes using the Safari web browser. This worked OK, except the website isn’t optimized for phone-sized screens and there is no mobile website version (at least not that Safari found). But playback continued even when I backgrounded Safari.
Mougg unfortunately also suffers from its newness and relatively late entry into the music cloud services. There are many choices already, even aside from the big incumbents like Pandora and Rhapsody. MP3Tunes.com already has covered most of the access I could see needing (Android and iOS apps, web, Squeezebox, Roku) and offers more (2 GB) free storage.
Support and Security are rather non-existent for this reason. There’s a web form to that sends an email somewhere, but I have yet to get a response from an email I sent. Neither company address nor phone numbers are available on the Mougg site. Security is equally non-existent. Your login appears to be encrypted, but otherwise no SSL for you.
In closing, there isn’t much else to say about Mougg, other that it works as advertised. It’s expensive when compared to its competition, doesn’t offer integration with many mobile devices and appears to be a two-person company in a crowded field already dominated by much bigger players. All things considered, I would look at MP3Tunes.com and competitors before relying on Mougg for streaming your music.