Tibi Puiu
Google Music
Rumored to be called “Google Music,” “Google Audio,” or “One Box, this latest search service targeted exclusively to the music niche, plans to revolutionize the way people find music.
Apparently, upon searching for a particular artist or song will bring up a box, hence the “One Box” name, where users will be able to stream songs randomly chosen by the search engine, as well as particular tracks. The search giant won’t become a retailer though, far from it, instead it will partner will music streaming websites already very popular on the web right now, like iLike (acquired byMySpace in August) and LaLa.
Google Music isn’t yet available, but allegedly it will get officially released next Wednesday, when Lala, iLike, “and others” will announce the service next Wednesday at Capital Records Music in Hollywood, California, with musical guests OneRepublic plus members of Linkin Park and Dead by Sunrise.
It’s curious, at the moment, how Google will handle the streams. iLike streams only 30 second tracks, while Lala allows registered users to stream complete songs and albums once, for free, after which point they can buy streaming songs 10 cents that can be credited to the purchase of the full download. There’s certainly big money to be made here, for all parties, but it will be very interesting to see how Google will wrap it all together.
This isn’t the first attempt Google has made on scalable music search, though, as some of you might remember the enhanced music search service Google pulled out several years ago. Search results pulled content from iTunes, Rhapsody, eMusic and others to create a “one box” result with artist photos, albums, bios and links to paid downloads redirecting to retailers like Rhapsody or Amazon. You can still check out the old service here, while the 2.0 version is still in stand by.
