Rumours have been flying around for quite a while about a Google Music service which is to be announced in about 6 months time. I tracked a bunch of articles on this and recent news indicates a very high probability of this happening for real. Here are some exerpts from those articles... Read the sources to find out more.





Followup on the previous article:


What say you ?

Could be big, could be small... I don't know what I expect from it. I mean the more services they make the more they can integrate everything into one massive uber service which is kind of cool, but then again will they be able to compete with itunes? I mean, its already established and has no noticeable flaws to exploit. Plus itunes has the loyal iPodians to back it, so who knows. I think if anyone has a shot other then apple at succeeding, its google. I also think it WILL be successful, but I'm just not sure HOW successful it'll end up being.

Might sound funny, but there is one thing Google lacks: Steve Jobs.

iTunes would not have been possible without Jobs' substantial links to the entertainment companies thanks to his ownership of Pixar and now a seat on the Disney Board of Directors. Remember, it was a techie (jobs) who was able to get the record companies to make a fair deal on electronic music sales online. It was a failure by the RIAA because they couldn't figure out how to make such a system work. Even now the record companies are trying their own thing of getting used to the idea of "renting music" instead of "owning" it. I think that is a model that Entertainment in general is trying to get people to buy into now. Think about it: 30 years ago there was cable and very few people had it. Today, just about everyone pays some kind of fee for their television service whether it be through a Dish or Cable.

Google may have a following and branding power, but I am unsure how that will give them the same leverage as a Steve Jobs. A lot of Apple is driven by his personality like it or not.

Personally I wonder when Google is going to become a bad word. Twenty years ago Microsoft and their products Office were great innovation that challanged the dominence of IBM in the business world. Today MS is the devil, and I have a feeling in 2015 Google will become the bad guys in public opinion.

That would be so great! Well, iTunes does't work in Israel, but if GTunes (someone copyright that, quickly!) were to work here in my own little country I would be very pleased! I'll probably even buy myself an MP3 player for the occasion.

Google are great, and the idea of buying music over the internet (though "renting" music is out of the question) is tremendeous, and will eliminate my two problems with buying CDs:

1. The huge price for a physical CD media that's going to be digitized anyways (even though I love having the original CD with all the booklets and artworks - if anyone wants an example, check out the booklet in Green Day's Kerplunk for a cool story)...
2. and the inaccessability of it, owing to infrequent and small music stores, and the lack of a huge diversity of CDs here.

Besides, Google just rocks my socks every day!

Google's seems to have their hands into a lot. I could see this happening. As mentioned cd prices are something that people complain about, and less convenient then just downloading a song. I look for most companies to have some form of music store. Wally world even has their own little spinoff of itunes. Could be interesting.

My biggest complaint about iTunes is that some of the most popular tracks are only available if you purchase the full album. Why is this so? Who made this decision - the record label or Apple? I don't know, but I DO know this: if Google's venture doesn't include that annoyance, then they'll have a one-up on iTunes right out of the gates as far as I'm concerned.

That and Google would probably offer free download codes...and the price per download might even be a little cheaper than Apple's .99 per track.

Well all I can say is it sure as hell wouldnt suprise me. Every product google seems to release is always far better than all it's competitors.

Soon enough google could well have a monopoly over all products.

Who knows maybe well see google fast food chains and airports? haha

interesting... a domain name called gmusic.com is already registered, but googlemusic.com isnt so hurry up and register it, so you can sell it later to google..

Hmm... tantalizing.

I would definitely see what "Gmusic" had to offer if there ever was one.

But I do think if Google sticks its fingers in enough people's pies, they'll lose street cred/popularity. Or, they'll run out of fingers XD.

If it's true, I don't think it's going to be successful. Look at the similar products that Google has released: Froogle and Google Video. I haven't heard anyone say "Look! I got this from Froogle!", and it seems to have disappeared from the Internet shortly after its release. Google's video directory is, in my opinion, the most messy of all Google products. It is nowhere near YouTube's directory. However, I thought that Google's embedded Flash video player was better than YouTube's player. And since Google had some success in Google Talk and Desktop, I think that it's music player (if it's going to release one) will be quite successful. I doubt it'll be better than Winamp, though.