Last night we broke the story that Google would be teaming with a number of well known artists to launch a promotion for its Music Onebox search, which was released last week. Turns out, it’s launching a bit sooner than we thought: beginning tonight a number of well known artists will be offering exclusive songs and free downloads through Google’s Music search. To get the freebies and exclusives, simply run a Google query for the artist’s name (the album name works too in some cases).
One clarification: while these songs are being presented and promoted on Google, they’ll also be available on the site that’s actually streaming the songs — be it MySpace or Lala. In MySpace’s case the songs could also be potentially be surfaced on other search engines, though it sounds like artists will be asking their fans to search for them on Google as part of the promotion.
Included among artists giving away free MP3s as part of the promotion are:
Tim McGraw
Phoenix
Major Lazer
Mos Def
Zee Avi
And the following exclusives are being showcased on Google as well:
AFI – “Torch Song (Demo From Crash Love Sessions)”
– Search on Google for “AFI”Arctic Monkeys – “Catapult”
– Search on Google for “Arctic Monkeys”Bon Jovi – “We Weren’t Born To Follow [Acoustic Version] (Recorded Live From Inside The Actor’s Studio)”
Dead by Sunrise – “Let Down [Live]”
Green Day – “Know Your Enemy [Live In Tokyo]”
Kings of Leon – “Crawl (Miike Snow Remix)”
Lady Gaga – “Paparazzi (David Aude Remix)”
Linkin Park – “New Divide [Live]”
Luke Bryan – “Better Than My Heart”
Norah Jones – “Young Blood”
One Republic – “All The Right Moves (Live)”
Paramore – “Where The Lines Overlap [Acoustic Version]”
Snoop Dogg – “Upside Down (Featuring Nipsey Hussle)”
The Fray – “Be The One (Demo Version)”
Trey Songz – ” LOL[feat. Gucci Mane & Soulja Boy Tell 'Em] [Logan deGaulle Remix]”
Weezer – “(If You’re Wondering If I Want You To) I Want You To (Live In Kansas City)”
Zac Brown Band – “Chicken Fried [Live From Bonnaroo]”
Image by thatcrazysteen.
Is it just me or is does anyone else notice how Google is on a tear lately? They are just rolling over EVERYONE.
Uh, Yahoo has had the ability to play *full-length* tracks for free from its search results for over 2 years. Yawn, Google. You are playing catch-up.
Sure, in terms of implementation, they might have to catch up. But if nobody knows about your product, are you really ahead?
Doesn’t Yahoo use Rhapsody meaning you can only play 25 songs per month for free without paying?
yes. you are correct. tho yahoo music is relaunching soon… surprised tech crunch hasn’t picked up on the story yet. it might be b/c the first yahoo music was a fail. but now i think they are about to focus on publishing. publish once, it goes everywhere. in fact that’s what they announced at new music seminar. we shall see
the ‘released’ going to “Another Verizon DROID commercial”.
ads ftw.
I can’t decide if I like how it plays in a popup window or not. I think I would prefer it just played right there like Yahoo does…
Then again, I guess you could move the small window to the side and continue searching…
I still prefer playing in place.
i found a good fun bug which is also huge:
if you play it through the pop up you can then go to lala.com and play another FULL stream. for free.
LaLa’s backend doesn’t know that you’ve streamed it off google.
again, i have NO CLUE how lala plans to afford this since they have to pay SX for every full stream.
correction: they pay the on-demand rate for the streams. not SX – but this still confuses me further and makes me raise my hands in the air and ask the same question: how will lala make money from this?
thing is, as a lala user (and mint.com user) i’ve discovered i have a propensity for buying about $15/ every 8 weeks on the 10cent lala streams.
still, all artists should reg for SX
so you’re in marketing?
Yeah, fantastic! And it’s genuine for free!!
Is this international? Here in New Zealand a search from the box at http://www.goog...m/landing/music redirects and gives standard search results…
SO NOW GOOGLE MANIPULATES THE ORGANIC RESULTS IN THEIR FAVOR??
IF YES, THAT IS DEFINETELY EVIL!!!
And as I have posted on this subject before they still leave out all of the indie music available on http://www.bandcamp.com, http://www.mixcloud.com, http://www.musicxray.com and other sites that have indie artists who need this type of service more than U2 or all of the other big name artists. And sadly enough MySpace has all of the indie artists that you can think of but yet the Google service does a terrible job of allowing the end user search for these artists. Big business and big dollars and the little guy is shafted.
Google ONEBOX
Its not working for me either (Thailand) and I have now read two articles about this new feature with no mention that’s its not world wide released. Wonder why….
It´s not working in Germany either (even with some tricks). So it´s maybe restricted to USA IPs. It´s always the same media industry license-b….s…., it took so long for Apple to port their movie store to the EU and it´s still just a joke relating the US iTunes movie store.
Why else should Google be more lucky than Apple?
Some additional thoughts on Google:
By the way, I am getting a little bit uncomfortable again if Google actively manipulates the rankings to promote own services and not uses their logic to decide what page is valuable or not – we´ll see where all that will end.
I see Google as Apple+Search in 3 years: offering media, mobile, operating system and pushing all that with the search engine and the incredible value of all their collected knowledge about how people behave online.
I don´t say it will be necessarily evil, but it will be 10 times more powerful than what we already see today!
So not even Europe. I guess Techcrunch reader base is US only
territory issues (and thousands upon thousands of disputes over territories) in the music industry, internationally, are the reason you can’t use it yet. Many albums are owned by 10 or more labels on international levels. it’s extremely complicated to take this international.
Sure I understand that but its not my point. The point is that its not worth a mention in any of the articles that this is a US only feature. Not that its surprising Americans thinking the whole world revolves around them.
What was it around 20% that owns a passport….
Glad they included the Miike Snow remix – relatively indie.
I don’t think musicians being paid for this at all. At least independent musicians.
Our music is on LaLa.com, search result on google in US shows and plays the music off LaLa.com but it doesn’t require a login into a LaLa account nor the play count for the track increases in LaLa.com.
To verify this, try searching/playing some little known artist that don’t get as many plays in a day to be able to track and you’ll see for yourself. (I used Fariborz Lachini)
OK at least rhapsody/yahoo limited the free plays to 25 but offering our music completely free. Is this legal?
wrong. musicians are receiving a check from sound exchange for every stream. i am not sure how lala will continue to afford it. but this is GOOD for musicians. they will make money regardless of whether or not someone ever buys the stream. every full stream is money in the artists pocket paid out to sound exchange by lala, myspace etc.
the artists job is to register with sound exchange so they can get their checks.
To register with sound exchange here is the link https://www.sig...spx?EID=SOUN13E
correction: a friend just ping’d me to let me know that the stautory compulsory list doesn’t apply,howver on the infamous industry list Pho (run by Jim Griffin) i did read that the full streams result in licensure payouts. I am now doing some explicit research to correct any mistakes in my understanding of how the streams on googles new service work, which licenses apply, and what deals are direct (maybe all)
in that case, the artist benefits from the lala business model in the most ideal scenario, but doesn’t get a check from soundX.
either way, it’s vital for you to reg at soundexchange as streams are becoming the #1 form of music consumption online. paid or not.
meanwhile, commence research NOW!
Ok. looks like i’m wrong – lala is not paying SX but instead paying on demand rates. so i still don’t know how they are affording it, but you won’t get an increase in your SX checks.
the question, thanks to my incorrect reply (tho i like being wrong b/c i just learned something new) is now: will people click the link from that pop up box?
i’m an avid lala user, i love my music in the cloud. the new iphone app is also quite bad ass (it was released as beta to forum members)
lala.com could only pay when it can count the number of plays, don’t you agree? if playing the music on google through lala, is not tracked on lala.com or any other system, then how could the musicians be paid???
my point, lala.com could not pay SX or on demand for something that it doesn’t count the number of plays for.
everyone loves music, especially in its free form! But isn’t this really illegal, i wonder how a musician can benefit from this??!!! our own website is now showing up the second in the search results and how can i expect anyone to pay me if it is made available for free by google?
http://www.lachini.com
thank you for posting the band photo with a credit, and under a license structure which is ok (creative commons). not trying to be snarky here, it’s just important and will help the integrity of techcrunch’s music-tech pieces.
on that note, i still want my zep on lala. i will continue to dream.
i love google’s new announcement. 14 yrs into my music industry career and i see it as a benefit. My only curiosity about the whole google packags is how, if at all, adwords will eventually play a role. as of right now, it’s a waste of money for bands to buy adwords. now i wonder if that will change and how that will affect the strategies that i advise to all of my clients (ranging in management, music venture advisement, and strategy development for mid-tail artists)
it’s a waste to be a musician, since you’ll never get paid for anything you create anyway.
Nice !
There are lots of types of music promotion techniques that have been used, direct marketing by sending cards announcing the product or event, radio and television can also work but can be hugely cost prohibitive. Anyway this decision is good for google and not for bands.