Google just launched an on-demand subscription music service at I/O called “Google Play Music All Access”. Its web and mobile interfaces feature millions of songs you can play instantly, recommendations, charts and playlists, and instant radio stations. The Spotify competitor launches today in the US for $9.99 a month, comes with a free trial month, and sign-ups before June 30th get it for $7.99. → Read More
Google Music has always been a very nice music locker, but while European users were able to use its iTunes Match-like scan-and-match feature since last month, U.S.-based users only got access to this tool today. Until now, U.S. users had to upload all of their music to the service, which could obviously take a while. Starting today, Google can just scan your music collection and rebuilt it on… → Read More
Users are tuning out of Google Music, the search engine’s foray into music cloud storage, streaming and sales. A high-ranking digital music executive told The Music Void that Google Music is losing users week after week, despite its preferred access to over 200 million Android installs,. Seems its lack of marketing, the missing Warner deal, and competition from iTunes Match and Spotify are taking… → Read More
Some rather inflammatory news has been making its way around the web today: a user posting on the Pirateweb message board has accused Google of removing copyrighted MP3 music files from a Gmail account — possibly using the scanning services that Google employs to block illegal content on YouTube, possibly using something else.
Shocking if true, so we went to Google to get a response. And the… → Read More
When Google Music launched a couple months ago, there was some criticism regarding how the service was promoted. What many saw as just another music locker and streaming service (albeit a perfectly good and free one) others saw as a great new vector for music sales and distribution. But the music locker portion seemed to hog the spotlight, and the cool Band Camp-esque new artist hubs lurked in the… → Read More
The web is less than enthused by Google Music, which made its debut today with the usual fanfare. The criticism is withering in its somewhat entitled way: “Where’s the Spotify killer?” “Rdio already does this!” “So it’s basically iTunes match?”
There are two things the critics decline to acknowledge: that Google is providing a simple, free service, and that all Google products start out… → Read More
Well, that didn’t take long. Invites to Google’s big music-related event only went out this past Friday, but the folks over at TecnoDroidVe have already gained access to Google’s new music store on an Inspire 4G and took a few screenshots for the rest of us to pore over.
There’s no word on how they managed to gain access in the first place (Google Translate tells me it was because of “tricks… → Read More
Now that Google Music Beta has been out there for a few months, it’s time to focus on how to get people to use it. One key: mobile.
While Google launched an Android app for Music Beta alongside the initial unveiling at I/O this year (it’s baked into the Music app), iOS users were SOL. Not anymore. Today, Google has rolled out an app so they can get in on the fun as well. But it’s not a… → Read More
Music Beta, remember it? It’s the online music locker service that Google unveiled at I/O in May. But the keyword in the title very much remains “Beta” — as in, not in any way ready for prime time. Okay, maybe that’s a bit unfair, the service does work — it just doesn’t offer much. A new feature today hopes to keep people interested while they work on making it better.
Magnifier is a new… → Read More
With regard to their cloud music offering, it looks like Apple is now just about ready to rock and roll. It would seem that this is now coming together even faster than they anticipated. And that may be thanks to two unlikely sources: Google and Amazon.
CNet’s Greg Sandoval is reporting tonight that Apple has signed an agreement with music label EMI to offer its music through Apple’s upcoming new… → Read More
As anticipated, Google unveiled their music service today at their I/O conference, Music Beta. The emphasis is on the “beta” right now as Google clearly isn’t launching the full service they had wanted to — you can thank the music labels for that. So how is it? What does it look like?
We’ve been granted early access to the service and have done a quick walkthrough. Below, find some screenshots… → Read More
At the end of October 2009, my colleague Jason Kincaid traveled all the way to Hollywood, Los Angeles, for the official unveiling of Google’s new music search initiative by the Internet giant and its partners, Lala, Rhapsody, imeem and MySpace Music / iLike. He interviewed just about everyone involved about the news, and Mike Arrington followed up with a post basically calling out Facebook and… → Read More
Make no mistake about it: the digital music space will be turned upside down this year, courtesy of giants like Apple, Google, HP, Sony and now, Amazon.
Earlier today, the latter announced that it was entering the world of digital music locker services with a bang, introducing services dubbed Cloud Drive and Cloud Player that basically let you store your digital music – and more – in the cloud… → Read More
“Well dreams, they feel real while we’re in them, right? It’s only when we wake up that we realize something was actually strange.”
Cobb’s quote from Inception reminds me of something. Something going on right now, seemingly all around us. It doesn’t feel like a dream, but increasingly, I’m not so sure. Something just isn’t right. And I believe it’s Google that is doing the dreaming.
Yesterday… → Read More
Yesterday, the WSJ reported that Google was planning to launch a music service in India to help users search for legal online streams and downloads and fight digital piracy, which reportedly runs rampant in the nation.
We’ve just gotten word that the service is now available at Google.co.in/music. → Read More
An article yesterday on Billboard gives some new details into Google’s upcoming music store plans. Over the past several years, there have been no shortage of services that have launched with the hopes of being the “iTunes killer”, but if the details told to Billboard by “industry sources” are true, and if Google can actually get the labels to agree to what they want to do (a big, no huge “if”)… → Read More
We all know Google Music is coming, it’s just a question of when – and what it’ll look like, of course. According to Reuters, Google hopes to launch the service as early as December 2010.
Citing unnamed ‘people familiar with the matter’, Reuters says Google’s VP of Engineering Andy Rubin (which we likened to a Steve Jobs-caliber product fanatic in the past) is spearheading talks with music labels… → Read More
iTunes in the cloud. We all know it’s coming, it’s just a question of when, and with what capabilities? A story from Boy Genius Report today appears to answer at least one of those questions, and vaguely answers the other.
If BGR’s “reliable” Apple source is to be believed, Apple’s iTunes cloud strategy will consist of three parts: 1) Streaming content from Apple’s servers to your devices 2)… → Read More
It was bad enough when Bing put ads on Google and in AdSense during its launch to get people to come check it out. (In fact, it’s still the top sponsored results when you search for “bing” on Google, even though Bing.com is also the top organic result at this point also). But now the shoe is on the other foot and Google is buying search ads on Bing for its fledgling Google Music Search.
Sure… → Read More
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