Google comes to the party with Google Music

David Swan
Thursday, 17 November 2011 16:10

Your IT - Entertainment

Google's 'better late than never' attempt to take on the iTunes and Amazon stores has finally been launched, bringing some much needed competition to the online music market.

 

Google has finally entered the online music arena, marking the start of a fresh battle between it and Apple.

The new service, Google Music, is only available in America at launch and has started with 1,000 labels including Sony, Universal and EMI, with Warner being the significant hold out.

At time of writing there are 8 million tracks available as 320kbps MP3s, priced between 99 US cents and $1.29. Users can listen to 90 second previews of each song before they purchase, an improvement over iTunes' 30 second limit.

Songs can be purchased from any internet-enabled device, whether they be desktop computers, or tablets or phones running Android.

"Today we are happy to announce you can buy millions of songs right from Android Market," Google product manager Paul Joyce said at a press event in Los Angeles.

The service will allow users to upload music to the cloud for free and then have the ability to listen to the tracks to via the cloud or 'pin' them for offline listening.

One particularly unique feature is that users willl also be able to share entire songs '” not just 90 second previews '” for free with friends through Google+.

Artists Hub pages will allow musicians to make customized pages where they can upload and sell their music through Google for a one-time $25 'artist registration fee.'

Google also designed the Music Store to allow independent musicians to be able to sell songs at prices of their choosing.

The artists will control the pricing for each song in a 70/30 split with Google taking the smaller share.

Google is also working with YouTube to allow artists to sell songs directly from their YouTube channels.