UPDATED: Google to Partner with iLike, Lala, Launch Music Service, Compete with iTunes?
UPDATED: Looks like Google is partnering with MySpace’s iLike and with Lala for their iTunes music competitor. TechCrunch again has the details:
From information we’ve gathered from sources, the new service will be integrated into Google search. Users will be able to stream songs directly from Google via partners iLike and LaLa. Additional information around the music query will be provided to users as well (presumably any relevant results from YouTube as well as information already available in Google’s existing music search – example). One source said that Google will organize music searches in a way very similar to the way they do public company stock searches today. Users will also be offered the opportunity to purchase songs for download, we’ve confirmed.
Original post after the break!
TechCrunch is claiming, based on multiple sources, that Google is set to take their Apple competition to a whole new level by introducing their own music service:
the company has spent the last several weeks securing content for the launch of the service from the major music labels. One source has referred to the new service as Google Audio.
Unclear is whether it will be streaming or download/purchase (could it, would the record labels let it, be like Spotify?!), and whether or not it will be available outside the US. (Amazon MP3, another iTunes competitor, has struggled to deploy internationally).
This would help record labels take another shot at iTunes dominance in the market and give Google’s Android platform another checkbox towards iPhone parity.
What kind of service would you want from Google Audio?
October 21st, 2009 at 8:09 am
Google = cloud. Therefore, it could be you buy or upload and they store and stream only what you own. I don’t see them wanting to be Apple/iTunes completely since data and software on the client side is minimal in their world view.
October 21st, 2009 at 8:10 am
I’ve mentioned before how the battle between Google and Apple was heating up. Apple making a play to get rid of Google Maps and Google with Android. Google makes this move and there is no going back. If there are any Google executives/employees left on Apple’s Board or vice versa there won’t be for long!
IMO, this would be a good move by Google. There is too much money for Google to leave iTunes with its what 70% online share of music sales. Especially, when TV shows and movies will purchased this way in increasing numbers in the future.
October 21st, 2009 at 8:22 am
It’s officail, google is officially Microsoft in the sense of monopoly and copying apple. Did quickly noob.
October 21st, 2009 at 8:28 am
No bad thing this. I think they have to cover both purchases and streams tho to really have a chance at toppling iTunes.
Google is IMO the only real competitor out there to apple and competition drives innovation. Apple have done a fantastic job in gettin iTunes where it is but like the iPhone it’s gettingto the point where it needs proper competition to push it to the next level.
October 21st, 2009 at 9:07 am
@IShirk
Get off your high horse. Last I checked Google execs made $1 a year w/ no bonuses or options. Do you think Ballmer’s & Job’s would take a salary like that?
So please tell me, how is Google like M$ again?
October 21st, 2009 at 9:52 am
@CJ As far as I know Jobs’ salary is also $1…
October 21st, 2009 at 10:05 am
Google, Google, Google…
sigh…
October 21st, 2009 at 11:02 am
@Ishirk – you need to do some research on the term ‘monopoly’. Within your very own statement you contradict the essence of monopoly. You can’t copy someone and have a monopoly.
Anyway, I see all this competition as good. Android is awesome and one-ups the iPhone in many areas. I like the iPhone (own one) but could be swayed. All I can hope is that all this spurs apple to do even more with the next generation iPhone.
October 21st, 2009 at 11:03 am
How about taking most of their products out of “beta” first b4 jumping into new projects? This is really starting to irritate me. Google seems to have a tendency to leave projects half finished.
October 21st, 2009 at 11:10 am
Funny how google developing a music service on their own is dismissed as “copying,” while Apple buying a map service company is somehow celebrated as wholly new.
Get over it. Apple, Google, Microsoft, Amazon, WalMart – all companies “copy” when they have the business need and it is legally permissable, and the resultant competition benefits consumers.
October 21st, 2009 at 11:19 am
Yup cj, your so right. I have no education in this area whatsoever.. Oh wait. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/22807978/
October 21st, 2009 at 12:23 pm
@IShirk
You might want to read the rest of CJ’s sentence. You know, the part that says “w/ no bonuses or options.”
Then, compare it to the first sentence of the article you yourself linked:
“Apple Inc. Chief Executive Steve Jobs continued his tradition of taking home only $1 in salary in 2007, when he also gained $14.6 million on paper by exercising stock options that were about to expire”
See the difference? Reading can be fun!
October 21st, 2009 at 1:40 pm
I can get music from Amazon. What I really want is Audiobook support for Audible (.aa files) on Android. Lack of support is the only thing keeping me with the iphone right now. No audiobooks would make for a very long commute. I also really miss my former Windows mobile phone’s ability to download the morning’s Wall Street Journal over the Air via Audible without having to sync to a computer. But I certainly don’t miss most everything else about WM. It drives me nuts that Apple gives you a mini-computer in your pocket but requires an umbilical cord to its itunes mothership on another computer for so many of its functions. Thank goodness for jailbreaking or the iphone would be even more artificially hobbled than it is right now. Hopefully competition with Google will open Apple up a bit, but then again they haven’t budged much with their Macs despite PC openess.
October 21st, 2009 at 2:04 pm
Le sigh. Google is copying?? Really?
Read up on history, Google had looked into acquiring Napster some years before the iPhone (same as they acquired all their other “Android-helping” ventures).
This music thing is nothing new, they just finally found what they wanted. Google is pure genius, they are becoming a force to be reckoned with.
Will this music thing succeed, who knows? Will it overthrow iTunes, most likely not.
But no business ever seeks to overthrow someone with that much control, it’s neigh impossible. But to disrupt the flow and take shares…that’s what is in store.
And if anyone can do it, it’s Google.
October 21st, 2009 at 4:44 pm
My main interest in this is whether it will allow easy music acquisition through any browser on the Open Pandora and other Linux based devices with ARM CPUs (non-Android). There’s a hole there that needs to be filled. I would have been fine if Amazon covered that, but it seemed unlikely.
October 21st, 2009 at 7:11 pm
I would like to see them TRY to topple iTunes