Google Acquires Curated Music Service Songza

mpicpp (3454017) writes with news that Google is expanding its online music services through acquisition. From the article: Songza focuses on playlists curated by music experts that are designed for specific activities or occasions and then suggested to specific listeners based on seven points of context: day of week, time of day, the device used being used, weather, location, what the particular listener has done before with the service considering those previous five points, and then what all other Songza listeners have done before given the first five context points.

Comments

What?

[Neruocomp]

What is Songza?

Re:What?

[timrod]

From the article, it's apparently an online radio service, similar to Pandora or Spotify, except instead of using machine-based algorithms to determine what you might like, it uses lists made by "music experts" based on criteria you give it. I hadn't heard of it before the article, but I might take a look when I get home from work.

Re:What?

[Major Ralph]

Same, it sounds like it could be pretty neat. Though I wonder what they consider to be a "music expert."

Re:What?

[Anonymous Coward]

That kid in the back of the class with his headphones on.

Re:What?

[BForrester]

What is Songza?

I don't know how popular it is as a browser-based service, but it's a very popular mobile app. Particularly when linked through home media systems, it allows a user to very quickly jump to a playlist based on a desired genre, activity, or mood.

Activities examples:

BBQ
Breaking Up
Driving in the Left Lane
Gaming
Getting High
Making Out
Unwinding after work

Re:What?

[timrod]

I'd imagine it's one of those people on any given popular music torrent site that do things like make absurdly large vinyl rips (I've seen vinyl rips in FLAC where each track is upwards of 350MB) using specific hardware that no one's ever heard of and complain about CDs because they were pressed using the Japanese method instead of the German one.

Re:What?

[Anonymous Coward]

What is Songza?

A soon to be ruined music system which will be augmented to give Google more of your data, extend their advertising business, and be one more step into the evolution of Google as the evil empire it's been trying to become for years now.

Whatever it is, the fact that Google is buying it means it will be pretty much destroyed as it is now.

And, they'll be updating the EULA/ToS to make sure they own your data in perpetuity and anything evil and asshole-ish their lawyers can think of.

Re:What?

[Cryacin]

So what soundtrack does it suggest to play whilst announcing another non-profitable acquisition?

Re:What?

[Nexzus]

I'll add, of the three: Pandora, Spotify and Songza, only Songza is [easily] available in Canada.

Re:What?

[ottothecow]

It's a pretty decent thing...although Spotify basically already has this. There are various "mood" based playlist options (like "Girls Night" "Lazy Chill Afternoon" "Indie Workout") as well as the ability to subscribe to other people's playlists (and there, you know who made it rather than "crafted by a songza expert"...e.g. you can listen to the Napster founder's playlists). Plus, you get the full power of spotify...so if you find a song on there that you like, you can directly add it to a playlist or go stream the whole album.

Songza forces you into the "radio" model where you can't actually pick songs...but it has a wider playlist variety. For instance, you can choose "Music for Working in an Office". From there you have a five choices like "Indie Music That's Not Too Weird" or "Easy, Breezy Summer Songs". Each of those has a few more choices underneath it--Under the Indie category, you get "Songs From Apple Commercials", "Mainstream Indie", and "Sunshine Indie Pop". This is a lot more than you get from Spotify. So you lose the direct song-level access, but you can really find playlists that fit what you want.

Its a good idea though. I've certainly tried to curate pandora/spotify radio playlists in a similar way, such as trying to create something that resembles a "Happy Summer" station rather than a "Sounds like XYZ Band" station. My guess is that Google will try to integrate it into their own Spotify competitor (Play Music). Works for them in two ways: enhances features for the paid service and attracts free songza users to the paid service (Want direct track control? Want to hear this whole album? Try Google Play Music free for 30 days)

Re:What?

[timrod]

I actually gave it a try at lunch on my tablet. The home screen on the site told me that it was Wednesday afternoon and gave me five suggestions, the first of which was essentially a "Top 40" list. I'm not into Top 40, so I tried the second one, which was I think "Energetic Songs". It gave me I think five playlist suggestions, two of which were "Twerk at Work" and some other thing related to twerking. The others were pop dance songs.

I wound up trying "Popular Indie", and getting a Jay Z song (apparently A-list rappers are indie now) and then more twerking songs.

So, in summary, this is probably great if your job somehow involves twerking, but I don't know how good it is for people like me.

Re:What?

[aitikin]

> (I've seen vinyl rips in FLAC where each track is upwards of 350MB)

That's a stretch.

192Khz * 24-bit = 576KB/s = ~35MB/min

350MB would be 10 minutes long uncompressed

That's for one track, not stereo. It would actually be about 69.12 MB/min or 4.14 GB/hr uncompressed, so, using conservative estimates, 3.105GB/hr FLAC.

Most people are wise enough not to bother with 192KHz, although some could argue for 96KHz, which still puts you at about half of the figures I stated above for a stereo track. 350MB is a 35 minute album done in 44.1KHz/16 bit at uncompressed or likely 44.1KHz and 24 bit done in FLAC or with really good FLAC compression, 48 KHz/24 bit.

This brings up a quick question for the GP, Joe, with the size of hard drives/solid state these days, why should you be so worried about file size? Audio quality makes a big difference in both perception and experience. 350MB for a high quality (audio quality not necessarily musical) album is a better way to enjoy a good (musical) album than a crummy 256 kbps MP3.

Re:What?

[timrod]

The big reason would be that my mp3 player (I don't have a smartphone and my tablet has been declared 'too big for the gym") can't play FLAC files of that size. My tablet can, and my PC can, but the mp3 player just isn't strong enough to handle it. Really, it's only a problem because I don't have a smartphone.

Re:What?

[IllogicalStudent]

From the article, it's apparently an online radio service, similar to Pandora or Spotify, except for the fact that it works in Canada.

There, FIFW. Google had better not break the one service we can reliably use up here without jumping through proxy hoops, or a bunch of us'll be pissed. I'm preparing the maple syrup cannons, just in case, eh?

Re:Sounds Just like 8 tracks...

[TheSeeker11]

What qualifies someone as a music expert?

Amount of cardigans owned.

Re:Songle

[Bohnanza]

I have recently become a heavy user of Songza, and one of the best features is the lack of ad breaks. I expect this to change pretty soon.

Nothing new

[SigmundFloyd]

We're Google: Give us every detail of your life for a song.

Change the name, Google!

[Anonymous Coward]

'Google Songza' is certainly catchier than 'Google Play Music All Access'.

Location is a factor too?

[xxxJonBoyxxx]

I dumped all other music providers about a year ago and now use Songza, particularly since it's mostly ad-free (and easy to download the streams). However, I've noticed that Songza's suggestions also seem to be location-based: when I'm at home in the sticks, I see a lot of country music suggestions, but when I'm in my office in the city, I mostly see rap and R&B suggestions.

Bah.

[ArtFart]

Just another opportunity for the Pigopolists to try to tell me what I'm supposed to like. Screw 'em.

Re:google kiss of death

[tuppe666]

I had never heard of it. Sounds like a good service. I would start using it except now that google has bought it surely it'll be gone in 2 years.

Yes like YouTube, Android where are they?