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Google Music Store Inches Closer?
smallguy78 writes "Forbes is once again reporting on Google plans to launch its own competitor to iTunes, a Google music store. From the article: 'The music industry is broadly unhappy with the fixed pricing and lack of subscription options at the market-leading iTunes Music Store and likely to support alternative services.'" We have touched on this subject previously. This most recent report would seem to indicate the launch will happen sooner rather than later.
If Google launched their own player along with the store, I could envision a pricing model that based the price of the songs on the number of plays it was receiving from its purchasers.
Over time, the cost of this track would become less and less and all of the "filler" tracks would slide fairly rapidly.
Jim http://www.runfatboy.net/ -- Exercise for the rest of us.
Of course there's no mention of file format. Since the audio players out there generally play some combination of MP3, AAC, and WMA, it's only reasonable to assume that the store will sell in one of those formats. Since we know it will need DRM to make the labels happy, that pretty much narrows it down to PlaysForSure WMA. If that's the case, there're already plenty of competitors out there. What will make this store different from Rhapsody, Yahoo, Napsters, etc?
This guy's the limit!
what is it with the childlike obsession wih the "do no evil" credo? It's kind of absurd.
... and it's a pretty good integrated suite, a bit better than google offers... already, and Live is in true beta - like less than a year beta as opposed to fifth year senior beta.
if you have a gmail account, they're probably doing evil with your consumer preferences right now.
re: a music store. Oooooooooooh, a shiny new music store. How innovative, Google. They're like eight years too late with that.
It's a misstep for google to be opening a music store.
As of yet, they don't have a million subscribers for gmail. if they do, they've passed that threshold so recently that there is little info on it. they haven't passed a million subscribers to gtalk either. they haven't shown any uptake for any of their products other than google, which means the general audience is either unaware of their consumer efforts and/or uninterested.
I've used Microsoft Live
looking at the world through google glasses is to obscure the reality. YouTube is eating Google Video's lunch. they only hold the search engine market - and deeper pocket will continue to assial them from all sides.
In your parlance, they'll need to do boatloads of evil just to SURVIVE.
Google = fairy tales for adults. They're just some guys who turned a graduate project into some cash folks. Relax.
un burrito me trampeó.
I hope that Google does this, and does so with the same standards and aplomb that they have used for all of the other Google services. I like Google, not because of the do no evil clause, but because their services work, they work well, and the costs are... well, affordable.
If MS or the RIAA could find a company that works as well as ITMS or that works better than ITMS, they would have done so. Clearly, they are in need of a partner company that has both the technology know-how and the backbone to make it work. Google definitely fits in that category. I hope that if such a bargain is struck, that the *AA finds themselves holding on for dear life to the tail of a very BIG tiger....
Support NYCountryLawyer RIAA vs People
You mean like http://www.savethemusicfan.com/, founded by the Nettwerk Music Group CEO Terry McBride?
With artists like Sarah McLachlan, Delerium, BT, Avril Lavigne, Bare Naked Ladies, and MC Lars, they're not exactly a small label. (But no, they're not Sony-BMG either)
And they are doing their absolute best to give the RIAA the middle finger--not only by founding this not-for-profit (and picking up families' RIAA legal costs and any possible fines), but by selling decent quality NON-DRM'ed music at their own download store.
Moderation is for Monks!
This is sort of a delicious irony because I remember in the 90's the big question about any computer system was "Will it run MS Office?"
Not since Marie-Antoinette played milkmaid has looking simple and honest been so fake and complicated.