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Google Shies Away from Digital Music Sales
mytrip writes to tell us that Google has announced that they will not be getting in on the digital music sales market anytime soon. Analysts have been predicting the response of a "GTunes" service for months but Chris Sacca, head of business development at Google, dispelled those rumors in a recent address at the annual National Association of Recording Merchandisers conference in Florida. Sacca emphasized the need for "ecosystem development" and partnerships within the industry stating that they were the "big opportunity" in the digital music business.
Several years ago everybody was going portal. Every search engine added shopping, communities, finance tips, travel, free mail account and tried to lure users into spending as much time as possible on their site as possible to get their cash and more cash from advertisers.
Then came Google with a simple interface and did one thing: search. And basically everything Google released since then was build around search. Even the videos. But music is very hierarchically organized: Artist - Album - Track. You seldom have to search for something, maybe you'll use Google to search for the lyrics if you cannot remember the name of the track.
Now everybody predicting that Google will go into music just falls into the portal trap. Hey, they did search, they have news, they do mail, so they must aim to become a portal, hence they will try to do everything and so they must want to do music.
Think: Google = search. If the product does not fit, there is no way to make money from it for Google and they won't do it (there will always be exceptions, but that is the general rule so far).
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If I were (one of the guys) in charge of Google, right about now I would be looking to create GMusic, a Google record label.
Offer fair prices on albums, and offer artists the majority of the profit (aside from what is required for operating expenses).
With all the piracy/lawsuits/RIAA crap that has been happening lately, I'm pretty sure at least a few major bands would jump at the chance to be part of a less evil label, and consumers would be happier/more inclined to buy from a label that actually supports their artists.
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If they're not looking into getting into the digital music market, what was the head of business development doing at the annual National Association of Recording Merchandisers conference? Sounds kinda shifty to me. :-P
Does this rag smell like chloroform to you?
They're really about providing free advertising funded services. Search is free. gmail is free. Groups are free. Presumably they don't want to deal with the inconvenience of paying consumer customers, who after paying a few dollars want everything. Business customers pay a lot more and are no more demanding.