Google to Launch Music Streaming Service

SoL DarkLord

SOL DARK LORD OF THE SEVEN HELLS
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Google launched a music streaming service Wednesday, taking its first stab at the growing industry with a new service linked to Google Play for Android.
The All Access service costs $9.99 a month and you get a 30-day free trial. And it's launching Wednesday in U.S., with additional countries coming soon. If you sign up by June 30, you get it for $7.99 a month.

The move puts Google in direct competition with music streaming companies like Pandora and Spotify, and also potentially with Apple, which has been inching in that direction. Just last week, for instance, word came that Apple had reached an iRadio deal with Universal Music, though it still needs deals with the other major labels.

If Google launches an additional YouTube streaming service, the company could take advantage of the video-sharing network's position as a dominant, legal source of music, particularity for teens.

Rumors about Google's new All Access subscription streaming service, unveiled at the Google I/O developers' conference in San Francisco, had been swirling around for the last few months.
Previously, Google Play users could stream music they bought from the app, but the new service would let people stream songs they haven't purchased as well. Users can now blend their songs with a catalog with thousands of other tracks available in All Access.

The service provides a never-ending list of related tracks that are also linked to your Google+ account. You can look ahead to what is coming next and if you don't like it, swipe the song away.
"We set out to build a music service that didn't just give us access to great music but to help guide you to it," Google engineering director Chris Yerga said.

Previous reports had Google signing deals with Warner Music and Sony Music for streaming services on both YouTube and Google Play, according to reports, but it was expected that Google would launch its Android platform first.

This can potentially lead to a Monopoly of services provided by Google. Now the only thing I'm curious about is the cost. Pandora is cheaper at $4 a month, $32 for a full year, if you pay for it. So the question is why does Google plan on charging $8 to $10 a month for this service.

source: http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-57584502-93/google-beats-apple-to-it-with-streaming-music-service/
 
pandora is operating at a netloss since it first opened. Spotify runs on a netloss as well there is no profit at these prices due to music royalties taking up nearly 70% of their revenues. Now supposedly google/apple were able to get a better deal on royalties then pandora/spotify due to their userbase/clout. The only reason pandora/spotify are around still because investors are hopeful they would gain enough share of subscribers to turn a profit.. with google, apple, and amazon joining the music streaming business. The subscriber share will be even less for companies like pandora/spotify. Google already has a huge userbase to push its new music streaming service on android phones and on the web. Most likely this will either force pandora to increase their price to turn some sort of profit as they shed users or investors may pull out. Either way even with the higher price this is bad news for pandora/spotify.
 

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