These days, it seems everyone has a music subscription
service. Twitter has one. Facebook has one through Spotify. There’s Pandora and
Rdio. And let’s not forget that Apple is expected to announce its own
subscription service next month. The digital music business is booming, and
companies are fighting to have their fair share of the market.
Google has a tendency to create master products and services
that knock all others out of the water. This isn’t their first venture into the
music business, either; the company already has a Google Play music store that
rivals Apple’s iTunes. But on Wednesday, May 15th, Google revealed
the new Google All Access, which was described by Android Engineering Director
Chris Yerga as “radio without rules.”
All Access will be a paid subscription service that pursues
the goal of getting Google on every screen and every device regardless of what
users are doing. Because music on mobile is becoming more common practice every
day, Google needed its own subscription service. The company procured deals
with all the major record labels and many independent labels.
“It makes a huge statement that they’ve recognized the value
of content,” said Ted Cohen, who is a digital entertainment industry executive
who has worked with several major record labels. “They’re recognizing the value
of what people create, and they’re asking people to pay for it.”
That alone goes a long way in repairing the tenuous
relationship Google has had in the past with the entertainment industry. Many
have felt that Google had not done enough to discourage piracy and that they
had not valued artistic media as much as they ought to.
All Access will include a download store not unlike that
found in Google Play and iTunes, as well as a “locker” in the cloud for storing
music collections. Users can search for music by song title, album, artist,
genre, and subgenre. As per today’s trend, it can also recommend music for
users to listen to. Listeners will have the option to listen to Pandora-esque
radio stations, individualized playlists, or others’ playlists.
No comments:
Post a Comment