Google music store could launch this fall
Eric Schmidt, Google's CEO, is preparing to take on Apple's iTunes. Schmidt visited with Doug Morris, Universal Music Group CEO (left) and Rolf Schmidt-Holtz, the Sony Music chief, during the Vevo launch party last December.
(Credit: Greg Sandoval/CNET)With the iTunes' banner waving supremely over the digital music landscape, Google continues to build its own music service, CNET has learned.
According to multiple music industry sources, Google could launch a music service that offers song downloads and streaming music as early as this fall.
Google has already signaled that it wishes to give users of phones equipped with Google's Android operating system a better music offering. At Google's I/O conference last month, the search engine offered attendees a demonstration of a Web-based iTunes competitor. Also TechCrunch reported two weeks ago that it discovered a "Google Music" logo hosted on Google's domain.
But Google's plans go beyond Android, say music sector insiders. CNET has learned that Google first stoked excitement among executives at some of the top four major labels during the Consumer Electronics Show in January. That's where they revealed some of the features that a Google music store might include, such as tying digital downloads and streaming music to Google's search results.
Google did not respond to interview requests.
Google knows music
Google first tried wedding songs to search last fall. The Mountain View, Calif.-based company launched Music Onebox and enabled people searching for song titles to stream the tunes via online music stores Lala.com and iLike. The experiment seemed to be derailed after those companies were acquired by competitors; Apple and MySpace respectively.
A Google-backed challenge to Apple's dominance of legal online music sales would be warmly welcomed by the top labels. They have tried for years to convince heavy hitters such as Google, Facebook, and AOL to take on iTunes.
The other top digital music stores, Amazon and MySpace Music, have yet to cut into Apple's huge market share. Those two big names, however, don't possess Google's reach with Web consumers.
Google CEO Eric Schmidt can already boast some success in music with YouTube. Before three of the four top labels launched Vevo and took control of their videos, YouTube was by far the Web's most successful streaming music service. Zahavah Levine, YouTube's general counsel who previously worked with RealNetworks' Rhapsody music subscription service, has a prominent role in helping to develop Google's new music store, the sources said.
The other piece of Google's music puzzle is software company Simplify Media, which Google acquired earlier this year after kicking the tires on several cloud-based media services. Simplify enabled PC and Mac users to stream songs from their computer-based iTunes or WinAmp libraries to other Web-enabled devices. Vic Gundotra, a Google engineering exec, said during I/O that Google would build Simplify Media's technology into a future version of the Android OS and thereby boost Android's music features.
Google is racing iTunes to be first with a cloud service. Sources in the music and movie sectors have said Apple is working on a Web-based iTunes service that could enable users to store music and video on digital shelves and then stream the content to Web-enabled devices.
So, while Apple works on a cloud service, CEO Steve Jobs might be surprised to find Google has begun serenading iTunes users.
Greg Sandoval covers media and digital entertainment for CNET News. He is a former reporter for The Washington Post and the Los Angeles Times. E-mail Greg, or follow him on Twitter at @sandoCNET. 
* 60 vulnerabilities being patched for Apple. Apple's always secure? WHOOPS!
* So iAds doesn't exist???? WHOOPS again!
On a lighter note, there will be minimal customer service and a base-yet-functional UI that will be difficult for partners to manage. Reports on music sales will be difficult to get or non-existent, and there will be minimal customer data available. But then again, maybe they're not using the Google Checkout rollout plan.
Tsk. CNET is acting like Microsoft doesn't matter.
You can't tell me that Apple doesn't know that iTunes is a system-slogging memory and CPU pig.
And now you know why we just got lost our unlimited data. It's easy to sell things as unlimited when you know it's not going to get used. But once people stand a chance to put those claims to the test...
But I suspect that over time this will change.
(for free) than most companies could ever compile.
No worries.
Android will eventually catch up to the iPhone. =)
No, Android (a Google phone OS) surpassed iPhone on AdMob (a Google subsidiary) ad requests. US only. Nothing to do with handset sales, just ad requests from the devices.
The same AdMob report (April data) shows that iPhone still has more handsets both US domestic and abroad. Plus, AdMob only keeps track of ad requests on its own ad network. They don't know what people are doing when they are visiting sites supported by other ad networks, or when smartphone users are accessing content that isn't ad-supported.
This begs several questions. Why do Android users look at so many ads? Are popular Android apps requesting AdMob content more often than similarly-popular iPhone apps? Do pre-installed Android apps access AdMob on a regular basis? (Note, no pre-installed iPhone app does so.)
Android phones are selling at a faster rate than iPhones. It's a bit like when Wii had sold fewer units than Playstation but were selling faster, and all the Playstation fanbois said, 'it's a fad, Wii will never outsell Playstation'.
And then it did.
Not to mention the fact that _any_ cellphone w/ a colour screen has been able to change wallpapers for the past DECADE now!
Oh, but there goes Apple again "leading" the way that "everyone will enventually copy". I guess wireless syncing (*coughs Zune HD* coughs*) will come some time in 2019 and IT will be the "first". Sure... sure.
Keep the hits coming Google.
And, in the theam of Android's open source goodness, why says there won't be 10 or 100 or 1,000 apps for playing music on Android? Customizable interfaces and features with the same core DRM program (I expect DRM after all) :)
Well, Mc'Donalds tries to compete with Starbucks right?
The product is just as good, it's a little bit cheaper.
But, do you know anyone who meets at Mc'Donalds for a latte?
Same thing.
Apple has a "cool" factor which Google can't buy.
Goodbye!
Consider this, your comparing half decent starbucks coffee with not so good macdonalds coffee. Correct?
Although what do you think will be not so good about googles music service, the bit rate will more than likely be as good in fact i would like it if itunes provided a better bitrate. Also i can't imagine google's customer service would be any worse than itunes considering I emailed them about a problem over a week ago and still haven't had a reply (there is no direct phone number for queries).
McDonalds DOES sell a lot of 'premium' coffee.
Or perhapse you care to complain that the attendant at the full-service gas station doesn't pump your gass well enough for you?
Oh, to be a Kool-Aid drinker of Steven H. Jobs-Christ's cult. lol
But Zune offers me the option of tagging a song I hear on the radio to download when I sync my device with my PC and because I subscribe to Zune Pass I can download and listen to it as many times as I want to see if I really wanna keep the song. If I could get that kind of functionality without the software I would be pleased but I wouldn't necessarily dump the software for it.
If Apple can sell computers, phones, music players, and music, why can't Google run a search engine and sell phones and music?
Overall, Google's business model is still more focued that Apple's.
If Google could get something out to the masses that would be a better interface, they will be able to make some noise. Nobody is going to overtake Apple, but there's a mighty big dent that could be made here.
On the other hand, I don't mind it so much that the record companies are living off of Apple these days. If you give the labels too much say, they will almost certainly screw their own customers. This will be interesting to watch over the next few weeks and months.
Don't forget that BlueRay will never sell because people have DVDs, and that DVDs won't sell ebcause people have VHS.
There are many 15 year olds that don't have big music libraries today, in 10 years many of them might have their music on a droid device.
Nobody I personally know uses iTunes because they like it. And most of them don't buy their music from iTunes and have it all in DRM-free MP3 files, so ditching iTunes is a non-issue. Anyone stupid enough to have invested their music money into iTunes DRM music deserves to be stuck with iTunes. Everyone else has choice.
And I preferred using my iPod for music over my iPhone. I hate the iPhone's music player. It's passably functional at best. Though since getting an Android powered Nexus One, I prefer to listen to last.fm or Pandora; been enjoying listening to them in the background while doing other tasks on the phone for months now.
-i do not have to subscribe to my music
-i can download the music for local use
-have better rights than what iTunes Music Store offers
-be internationally available
-works flawlessly with iTunes, iPods, iPhones and iPads.
I'm all for a competitor to the iTunes Music Store, but i wont support if it offers a worse product/experience, and needs me to jump through hoops.
I wanted to try out Amazon MP3, but when i did try and use it, i was informed i was not in a supported region. No problem here..i took my business elsewhere.... namely, the iTunes Music Store. I'm still waiting for a decent alternative.
Then again, I haven't bought music in quite a long while.
- by Hike_Every_Day June 14, 2010 11:36 PM PDT
- How long will it be until Apple starts offering search on all the devices?
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