TechCrunch writer Jason Kincaid traveled down to Los Angeles earlier today to cover the launch of Google Music Onebox. In addition to his live notes from the event and the panel, he managed to point his camera at just about everyone involved in the new service: Google Director Product Management Search R.J. Pittman, MySpace Music President Courtney Holt and LaLa founder Bill Nguyen. Jason also recorded his own first demo of the product, which didn’t go so well based on the mouse and browser setup.
Key takeaways – Google will integrate new partners as it makes sense. And while MySpace knew about the negotiations between iLike and Google prior to announcing their acquisition of iLike in August, the deal was far from certain. More on that in a subsequent post.
All are below:
I can see how this turns Google Search into an interface similar to iTunes where people can preview 30 seconds of a tune and then buy.
Here is the issue, who is actually going to buyy when they can just open Limewire and get the song for FASTER and for FREE.
Google has a history of making great products and services free. I can still remember playing for Earth before Google purchased the company and made it free, which was amazing at that time.
Google could have considered purchasing Seeqpod, cut a blanket license with the labels and go full on with revenue partnership on ads displayed on the Onebox service.
Everyone would be happy, and maybe such a plan can still happen.
This is a terrible user experience. And Yahoo has already done this for ages. This is not a step in the right direction for music lovers.
Seems like MySpace made a bet, and it paid off.
I would also assume that prior to the acquisition, people from MySpace talked with people from Google regarding the probability of the deal with iLike, and liked what they heard…
bye bye imeem
They are listed as a partner.
Wow the user experience absolutely sucks. What is with the lame popup window, and from myspace no less.
Pathetic. I’m rooting for Bing to kill them here.
very unimpressed with the actual improvements. It wont really make any difference to avid music fans who already frequent p2p sites, blogs & services where they can access anything they want. Totally not a game changer at all.
(as we have learned, access > ownership)
I was really hoping this was going to be more like Google China.