Google will soon launch a music service, we’ve heard from multiple sources, and the company has spent the last several weeks securing content for the launch of the service from the major music labels. One source has referred to the new service as Google Audio.
We’re still gathering details, but our understanding is the service will be very different to the Google China music download service that they launched in 2008. That service, which is only available in China, allows users to search for music and download it for free.
This new service will be available for at least U.S. users, our sources confirm, although it isn’t clear if it’s a download or streaming service, or both. Google already has a decent (if little used) music search engine that can be accessed by simply typing “music:” before a query (example). But songs are not available for streaming or download from those searches.
We’ll update as we get more details.
Update: More details on the service, which is in partnership with LaLa and iLike, here.
Update 2: Screenshots and more information.
Sounds like they’ll beat Spotify to the US market!
Could this be a Spotify killer?
“although it isn’t clear if it’s a download or streaming service”
that sentence isn’t totally clear. My understanding is the service is either download or streaming, or both. if that makes sense.
I pretty sure you covered all the possible options. unless having the music transcribed is an option.
They are going to use google voice’s voicemail transcription technology. If you actually want to listen to it you will have to use VoiceOver. Could sound good…….
I got to agree with @M.A., what is in my mind now whether they will implement something realtime or live like google wave does.. yeah it might be a strange concept
but that could be viral music too
@Michael Did you hear anything about Microsoft’s similar music service ? http://www.mobi...-music-service/
safe game right ?
-Google Music.
I prefer downloading music rather than streaming..
Hi,
You will buy it and then download it. Google gonna be as a middle man, you will buy it from other sites like iTunes , Amazon, and ILike.
Thanks
Some Artists choose to offer their music for free on purpose. We have all been brainwashed into believeing that we have to pay for downloadable music. There is a new model coming and Secret studio is not alone in seeing it. Maybe just ahead of the curve.
Notice that iLike does support free downloads from their artists. We offer about 25 right now. But it is specifically omittied from the article.
Looks like another great service from Google which will capture that market…Will be waiting for it launch.
Some competition for ITunes will only be a good thing for consumers.
iTunes charges money, Google would be free (legally)… that would be a huge game changer and wipe iTunes off the map along with quite a few other charging services like Amazon etc.
Jon @ WoodMarvels.com
Maybe we should wait until we actually know what it is before declaring it a ‘game-changer’?
Seconded
That sounds awfully pragmatic and sensible. Down with the reasonable people! After all, all progress comes from unreasonable men.
In that spirit, I hereby declare that Google Music will wipe out iTunes, Spotify, AND the iPod/iPhone (through mega-integration with all Android handsets out there), and revolutionise the music industry by finally exorcising the record companies. And it will cure AIDS and cancer.
but….. it’s Google….
That’s non-sense. If we can declare email dead (and the pencil if I remember correctly), then we can go ahead and declare that this is game changing!
More choice, yey!
Not sure how this counts under Google’s mission “to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful.”
Music is information?
Maybe. But my hunch is this may have had to do more with Schmidt’s departure from the Apple board than anyone else knew at the time.
More here: http://www.exam...t-shot-at-Apple
Or, conversely, Schmidt’s departure from the board led to him deciding to compete head on with Apple…
Music by itself is not information, but your music listening habits is a huge pit of information. This will help google play advertisements containing your type of music to sell you more stuff.
Music is money, baby…money is information….think about it….
Looks like they’re trying to beat Microsoft, who announced a similar service a few months back (in the U.K. at least), but then delayed it.
Got a link?
The Daily Telegraph: http://www.tele...this-month.html
Google “microsoft music”
Thanks, I wondered if that’s what you were referring to. That service from Microsoft seems mythical at the moment though I suspect if they do ever get round to properly announcing it’ll be something to do with Zune.
I would guess that Google are further along judging by this TC article.
-Jamie
Microsoft’s deal will be UK only. The Google thing may be online streaming or something Muziic/Spotify-esque.
Doubt it’ll be downoads, most probably streaming. Streaming with audo ads in the future, ive said it before but I think only googe has the ad inventory to make ad funded music streaming work.
Hopefully later they work deas with site pubishers to use their service.
In China, I think Google Music will beat Baidu music search engine. Google is the better.
But the google music in America, may be a greater choice
these buggers – will they never stop?
I share your sentiments.. Google seems to be entering into every business..
Google is like the Goldman Sachs of the technology industry. There are also like a giant information sucking squid whose business is violating our privacy 24/7 and selling that to the highest bidder vi ads. All these information services is the crack cocaine to prevent us from realizing what we are selling. Similarly to the technique used by pimps to utilize crack to keep their employees busy turning tricks without regards to damage to their body, soul, and self esteem.
Um, you do realize that your ISP has more information on what you do on the internet than Google does and they want to legalize inspecting deep packets to provide targeted ads to you while you’re on the internet.
Do you have a cell phone? Unless you take the battery out, your cell company knows where you are 24/7 – that’s way more info that Google knows about you. They also keep track of every phone call you make, every text, etc…
Hate to break it to you but Google’s “privacy” invasions are childs play compared to what companies that you pay for services due to you.
Oh, and what does Google *really* do? Hm? They have a program that scans your email for key words to provide targeted advertising? And the advertisements are only words on one small portion of the screen. I’d rather have that then big flashy adds everywhere else. But that’s just me.
Hey Mark,
Nice try, but potentially having access to the data and selling ads against the data in real time are worlds apart.
The privacy issue is Google vs. your isp is that GOOG can act on that data in real time. Your ISP will likely have to go on a log file fishing expedition. So they won’t.
Whatever. As long as they have apologists like you, no one needs to care. Passport anyone?
There’s no privacy issue. You choose to use Google. You choose to give them information.
@SRSLY Private : you can still stop using Google (and Facebook or Linkedin, for that matters). No one’s forcing you.
So android will get it’s own music store too (sooner or later)
As an iPhone user I say, “Yea to competition!”
Hopefully Apple will also get into Search. It has been stagnant for years and, besides some excellent TV spots, Bing has been a big disappointment.
Search is desperately in need of someone with innovative thinking and a better eye for UI. Google looks stuck somewhere in the era of Geocities, and Bing only proves that different isn’t always better.
It sounds more and more like three companies wanting to reap in on everything the consumer needs: GOOG, AAPL, MSFT. All with their competing offerings should leave us with plenty of choice. I like competition.
My reply above to David was meant to be a reply to Meccas:
———-
As an iPhone user I say, “Yea to competition!”
Hopefully Apple will also get into Search. It has been stagnant for years and, besides some excellent TV spots, Bing has been a big disappointment.
Search is desperately in need of someone with innovative thinking and a better eye for UI. Google looks stuck somewhere in the era of Geocities, and Bing only proves that different isn’t always better.
Although, I’m afraid that this might end up like the telco industry in the US. Three companies, so prominent that makes it impossible for any new company to enter the same market segment and holding a position to price fix all they want among themselves
.
Here’s hope that GOOG won’t let that happen. If it was APPL and MSFT alone, that situation was almost guaranteed.
Is Google killing other small businesses? They’re killing web analytics companies. Hope they will be giving free music the way they did with Google Analytics. LOL
I highly doubt it will be voice ad supported, but a combination of subscription and image ads is possible.
remember, G failed with radio ads and killed the project.
This is very good new for music industry.
I’m sick of Google. They seem to want in on every type of web service. I for one hope this fails. They are turning into the noughties version of Microsoft during the early 90’s.
One would assume if they’re launching a music service that there’s an application to go with it, non?
Great, just what we need, another US only music service.
Don’t see the point in Google launching such a service, unless they have a ‘killer app’ to partner with.
In the UK, Sky TV is also launching a Music Service and if Microsoft eventually gets their act together then there will be Three new Major Music Competitors to Apple’s massive iTunes Store.
But if Apple really wants to stay so far ahead of the game then I suggest that they either purchase or partner the best ‘killer app’ in Online Music today – Spotify.
iTunes & Spotify = Game Over.
They cant make music free legally. that would mean a huge huge change for the music industry and a massive lunge for the big name labels. asif its free
Right .. that would be a drastic change in the music industry .. and i was wondering what if it is really free .. iTunes will be ripped off ..
Best,
Daina
Perhaps not free downloads, I agree, but unlimited free streaming (with ads) is quite possible.
If anybody would have the ad inventory to do it, Google would. That is possible for free, commercial radio shows it.
what would that mean for Vevo?
As far as I know, the only free music that doesn’t demand an income of some kind, whether through fees or advertising, is Creative Commons-licensed music.
If Google have somehow managed to make free “commercial” music profitable, it will change internet music consumption overnight. This will be fun to watch.
Some Artists choose to offer their music for free on purpose. We have all been brainwashed into believeing that we have to pay for downloadable music. There is a new model coming and Secret studio is not alone in seeing it. Maybe just ahead of the curve.
Notice that iLike does support free downloads from their artists. We offer about 25 right now. But it is specifically omittied from the article.
Have there not been a music search, which was discontinued? Because no one has used.
I like the name for this new sevice – Google Audio
I don’t get this rush of companies trying to enter this market. Google is an exception, as they’re willing to enter sectors and not worry about revenue models until much later (eg maps).
However, can’t see how this is a sensible and highly lucrative area when Spotify and others are providing such a compelling free service. They will make good money in this area, but nothing like the total revenue that the big players (eg Sony, EMI etc) were making only a few years ago before the world of digital transfer kicked in (ie pre-Napster).
And how on earth is this good for the music industry? Good for music consumers, yes. Good for the traditional big players in the music industry – no chance.
What?!?
Who gives one single sh_t about what is good for the “music industry”?
What is good for “musicians” and “consumers” is the only game that matters. If the music industry can add value to the relationship between musicians and consumers, more power to them. If not, then they’re just middlemen adding a markup with no added value. Good riddance.
Nice language sensor. It’s cute.
These days, when I want to hear a song NOW I just fonzie-hit the “Universal Video Jukebox” know as YouTube. Either that or TheSixtyOne, both allow me to consume, collect and organize 90% of my tunage on demand–and for free or free-ish. I cannot honestly remember the last time I pirated/bought music. But WOW, I sure seem quick to buy tickets for the live shoes of the music I love. So in a way, Google is already playing in this space with YouTube…YouTune + Ticket Master seems to be a smart short leap.
Regardless, anything that a) expands choice and competition and b) drives another nail in the archaic turnip-squeezers of RIAA, I am all for it!
–live shoes, now that is something Google needs to look into. Yes, I meant shows.
Google are relentless and their portfolio of services continues to expand! Anyone mention comparisons to Skynet!?! This will have to be really impressive to convince me to move from Spotfiy/Last.fm!
Don’t know if its a coincidental :gave an idea to embed songs directly to wave from a Google search with in the wave few days back, Google china had music search from day one, and now it’s hitting the world !!
But sad they are non-free.
may be the reason those board members had to leave.
but one thing is certain. google is no media company, and this is as big a media play as it gets. i see this going the way of google video. totally.
….. Google bought YouTube right after Google Video so they no longer needed to put resources into it. So…. does that mean you think Google is going to buy iTunes?
Wasn’t even aware of ‘music:’ in the query field. Sweet.
They must have something absolutely freaking fantastic bolted on to this service, or I just can’t see how it will do in the already flooded market place. Can’t even begin to imagine what it could be!
Surely it will be more than just using brand weight due to the copius amounts of the internet they own?
podría tratarse de un servicio similar a iTunes de Apple para los dispositivos iPhone / iPod Touch, recuerden que Android 2 se lanzará en breve y es obvio que va a disponer de una tienda musical.
The principal value of the streaming services to date has been the massive advance payments they’ve had to pay the labels. Whether the artists ever see any of these advances is largely hushed and sidestepped.
Reading between the lines, its a beleivable angle that in order to allow Youtube to start featuring the music videos of all 4 majors once again, they had to also launch a Google streaming service which promised another fat advance to each label…
What needs to happen is Google needs to buy Palm and Double Twist. They need to mesh the best of Andriod and WebOS. Then they need integrate Google’s new music service and the Andriod (and now WebOS) market into DoubleTwist (much like DoubleTwist has done with the AmazonMP3 store.
Hopefully this doesn’t go the same way that Google’s original attempt to sell movies did.
Very interesting, if it works well.
It’s going to be nice to see some competition for itunes.
Big news indeed. iTunes has done well for me, hope Google Audio can do even better
I don’t want more music. I want to port my number to google voice. They shoudl re-brand as Google/beta
Google Audio? Can it be sharing audio recorded by users?
I watched their CEO talk and he said if you look ahead 5-10 years consumers will consume content however and whenever they want in whatever order they want.
Google is betting their fortune in consumers winning and are positioning themselves to be the dumb pipes between content providers and content consumers whether it’s news, music, print or video.
“the service will be very different to the Google China music download service” should be “from”
This will be tied to the launch of Vevo.com. It will most likely be the back-end sales platform for that site. Rather than send those customers to Apple or Amazon they will have a Google music store/service of some sort. If it is any good, it will have an android app as well to create a bridge from music videos to sales to mobile.
Vevo.com is already a venture between Sony Music, Universal Music, YouTube and Google, so most of the major players are already actively working together. With all that going on, it isn’t hard for them to bring Warner and EMI to the table
Yep, it’s pretty obvious now why Schmidt had to leave the Apple board, and it wasn’t about Google Voice. They are going to go directly head-to-head in competition now.
I hope he left an upper decker the last time he was at Apple HQ.
google is becoming a tough competitor for yahoo & Microsoft…….
“Google is the best, Google was the best, Google will be the best”
I bet they’ll be competing against iTunes and Amazon MP3. More choice for the consumer.
Hopefully they’ll enable an API for third party developers to create alternate store fronts to their catalog.
Wonder what price point they’ll get for each song.
Wish they went for the fair price of $0.25 a song.
Or… maybe Google will finally show the RIAA that sponsored music works even better than selling songs.
The logic behind would be:
- Give it for free and you get lots of ears
- Monetize on every N plays instead of selling the song.
- There’s a lot of people that listen to music while they work all day
I bet this is not going to sound too good to pandora, or last.fm, which have been restricted to not allow the user to stream on demand.
Awesome, can’t wait to see it live. Keep us posted TC!
Wow, I really try not to be a Google fanboy, but seriously!? It’s hard not to be amazed at the stones they have and the foresight to line up their ducks for each successive idea. (Even the ones that fail are simply learning experiences for them instead of heartbreaks.)
I don’t get it . . . why would they try? Isn’t the music industry littered with failed companies trying to bring it into the 21st century? Labels want too much money.
The only reason I could see this being remotely interesting is to provide a music service for Android. Make it more competitive as a music device.
Otherwise, I don’t get it.
http://www.traderbots.com
I’d say because they’re big enough to tell the music industry what to do, and maybe the RIAA will actually listen to google.
Also, google has done stuff a little bit outside the book when it comes to copyright. Remember when they just bought youtube, I bet they still have quite a bit of expenses in legal fees taking care of all the copyright related issues.
This was probably driven by Google’s secondary status in China. Baidu was the leader in China primarily because it allowed users to download illegal mp3s while Google China didn’t.
Necessity was the mother of this Google invention to compete and now it’s a service for Google global. The new DeathStar continues to grow…
Well, this is fun. I don’t think it’s gonna be any less successful than its super awesome google docs service. I just hope nobody jinxes them and screws up their really almost untainted clean name.
They already have a music streaming service .. it’s called YouTube …. and it can stream videos too
+1
Perhaps they are buying lala.com?
every single move google has made into the premium content space has been a fail.
what other premium content programs did google fail at? Gmail is doing well (Kent State University outsourced their student email to gmail and I’m sure they are paying for it).
Music is a hard sell at such low quality.
Something is coming along that will blindside these efforts.