Google Music: iTunes for Android or something more? | 1 Comment
By brian on 11-18-2011 04:46 PM
Google Music, an online music store and “free locker” for digital music, was rolled out to the public on Wednesday.
Google Music, with more 13 million songs, will be integrated with Android Market, the company’s online store for smartphone apps and videos as it plays catch-up with its rivals. Apple, Amazon and Facebook have to varying degrees integrated music into their core online and mobile products. Google Music will allow the Web search leader to do the same by letting consumers access music from various Internet-connected devices and easily share tracks with friends. Google has negotiated U.S. deals with three of the four major music companies: Vivendi SA’s Universal Music Group; Sony Corp’s Sony Music Entertainment; and EMI. It has also signed deals with the increasingly influential independent label group Merlin and London-based Beggar’s Banquet label group, home to the year’s biggest selling artist, Adele.
While no single Android phone has approached the popularity of the iPhone, Android smartphones as a whole have become a serious force, capturing more than half the overall market during the last quarter. (Android phones amounted to 52% of the global market compared to about 15% for the iPhone, according to Gartner). For someone trying to decide between buying an Apple or Android device, iTunes could be a deciding factor. Google Music, at least in part, could take that bullet out of Apple’s gun.
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