Google Music Downloads Coming, Subscription Next
In what could prove to be a welcomed move for music labels, Google Inc. is planning to release a music download service that’s tied to its search engine later this year. The Wall Street Journal is also reporting that Google will introduction of an online subscription music service sometime in 2011. Many hope that this will cause Apple’s dominant market position to be shaken.
Initially, it’s expected that Google’s music service will permit fans searching for music in their engine to be linked directly to a Google store where they could then buy and download tracks. It is believed that the store would enable Google to position themselves in as a cloud-based subscription service, allowing users to stream music directly from the internet to their mobile phones.
Over the past year I’ve noticed a lot of typos in Hypebot posts (this one has 2). Is there a reason you guys don’t proofread more carefully?
True dat.
Will subscription services really work? Think about it, music is considered free right now. I currently use AT&T, who will start charging me for bandwidth. If I store my music in a digital locker or subscribe to something like Google, I will be paying for the bandwidth and the subscription to listen to music every month. Why do I want to pay that when my devices can store years worth of music and travel with me.
I call shenanigans on the whole concept of streamed music subscriptions. It definitely is NOT the saviour of the music industry.
If you really care about a track then you will want to have your own copy (one way or another) so you can listen as often as you like and wherever you like (even outside broadband reception (which is a lot of places around here)) without having to pay over and over again to keep listening to the same song (even if it’s just in bandwidth used)
If you don’t care enough about a song to want your own copy, you certainly don’t care enoughh about it to pay for it.
I see streamed music more like radio on demand, you can hear new stuff tailored to your tastes, and when you find something you really like you’ll get your own copy. Just like real radio however, people are not going to pay for this.
In fact, more and more we will find that the attitude of consumers will be that listening to new music is a transaction where value flows FROM the listener TO the artist.
Listeners are never going to pay to hear new music, we should count ourselves lucky they don’t yet want to BE paid for the priveledge of their time.
This is just simple economics in a world of massive music abundance.
I also wrote another long comment on cloud based music subscription services at the end of another recent Hypebot article on the subject.
That comment covered several other serious criticism, none of which have been rebutted.
I can’t find that story now, but I did copy that comment to my tumblr blog so you can read more of my thoughts on this subject there
http://essbeekay.tumblr.com/post/636751619/when-you-live-in-the-cloud-what-happens-when-it-rains
Buffalo Soldier Music Rules The World
http://www.jango.com/music/Buffalo+Soldier
Buffalo Soldier Music Rules The World
http://www.jango.com/music/Buffalo+Soldier
Google Music = Fail
AT&T/Apple just crushed the streaming music biz with bandwidth restrictions. Google should stick to search. And musicians should stick to creating great music. Create something special, and people will pay for it.