Report: Google Preps Rival To iTunes Music Service

Ed Sutherland ()

google-and-apple.jpg

The beat goes on in the emerging battle between Internet giant Google and Apple. The latest volley comes in the form of a report claiming the Mountain View, Calif. company is preparing an iTunes rival possibly called “Google Audio.”

Google has spent the “last several weeks securing content for the launch of the service from the major music labels,” claims TechCrunch, citing several unnamed sources.

Although the report believes launch of the new service is “imminent”, no time frame was provided.

Unlike a music service Google launched for only within China, the new service is expected to be available to U.S. consumers, one of the largest potential markets for downloading music. Also different: Google might be able to charge for the downloads, where in China (with nearly 100% music piracy) tunes are free. Google owns a little-used music search engine that could be enhanced with the ability to download and purchase tracks, according to the report.

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[Via TechCrunch and Gizmodo]

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About the author

Ed Sutherland

Ed Sutherland is a veteran technology journalist who first heard of Apple when they grew on trees, Yahoo was run out of a Stanford dorm and Google was an unknown upstart. Since then, Sutherland has covered the whole technology landscape, concentrating on tracking the trends and figuring out the finances of large (and small) technology companies.

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  • imajoebob

    With all the stuff Google’s been developing in the last year or so, have they created anything successful, other than buzz? Almost everything I read talks about all the potential of Google Apps, Android, Voice, and now Audio. But I haven’t read anything about concrete commitments to any of these platforms, not even Android. Sure Verizon is flogging the crap out of the Droid, but have they discontinued the phones on other OSes?

    Google will have a real problem if they don’t start getting some major returns on all the development, and soon. Android seems the best bet – since they can actually sell it. But if it doesn’t take off all they have left is a bunch of free software.

    Maybe they’d do better leaving Apple and MS alone and taking on IBM and Oracle? Just think how valuable their programmers would be for creating semi-custom mainframe/massive computing programs. IBM may still be a great choice for behemoths like Walmart, but for somebody like GM – which needs to roll out new solutions this week, not in 5 years, a company like Google may have better, faster solutions.

  • http://www.getfreeitunes.com getfreeitunes

    Well, I’ve observed the following; from owning yahoo, up to becoming the top 1 most searched website. Google is naturally hyped on dominating services

    We all know that iTunes and Yahoo Music! is there. lets just see how Google will Manage to be on top, now that they finally released their official statement of launching a Music service.