Google Debuts Music Search Feature with Lala, iLike

Authored by Mark Hefflinger on October 29, 2009 - 8:11am.

Mountain View, Calif. - Google (NASD: GOOG) announced on Wednesday the launch of a new music-focused search feature, "OneBox," which adds streaming songs via Lala and MySpace's (NYSE: NWS) iLike, along with links to an artist's website. Along with Lala and iLike, Google will also include links to digital music services Pandora, imeem and Rhapsody (NASD: RNWK). The feature will in many cases allow users to listen to the full song they are searching for right there from the search results page; licensing issues mean that some songs will only feature 30-second samples, and that subsequent searches after a song is streamed in full once will only provide a 30-second sample.

The partner music services each feature links to purchase songs, but as of now, Google's new feature does not offer direct links to purchase song downloads from iTunes (NASD: AAPL), Amazon (NASD: AMZN) or elsewhere.

The company is not working directly with record labels for licensing, as Lala and iLike have properly licensed the songs being streamed via Google.

But Google said that the labels approve of the new feature. "Everybody's been very supportive. Indeed, our business model is to improve the search experience with the help of streaming partners, which offer interesting business models of their own," R.J. Pittman, director of product management for Google, told Reuters.

"Google is the most powerful internet partner that these music services could have," Michael Nash, Warner Music Group's (NYSE: WMG) executive vice president of digital strategy and business development, told Wired.com.

"We think that it's potentially very significant from the standpoint generating revenue and gives a big boost to legitimate digital music services."

Poll: Will Google Music Onebox be a Success?

http://tech.yahoo.com/news/nm/20091029/tc_nm/us_google_music_2

http://snipurl.com/swndr (Wired.com)

http://www.google.com/landing/music

Published in DMW Daily, October 29, 2009

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Comments

Google is Cooking Something

Submitted by Jill (not verified) on October 29, 2009 - 8:59am.

A smart move for Google, it means More ads from the Music Industry in Google. It looks like a song on demand service. They are doing something to see what happens. This wont stop free downloads, this will help free downloaders to hear songs and later get them free. I still rely on ( LoggTV.com ) for music themed channels and free internet TV.