Google announces Launch of Music Onebox Streamline Feature – Search Engine News
Last week Google announced yet another product launch, this time its a new search algo, called Music Onebox. This feature allows you to stream songs from partner service like MySpace’s iLike, Pandora, imeem, Lala, and Rhapsody). What does this all mean, to the average listener?
Most noticeably, the ability to locate a song from an artist is going to be a snap. You can click to listen to a tune with a jump right from the search results page. No need to even know the name of the song to find it (Just type in some of the lyrics and off Google goes!). A new post over at Google blog site lists smart search as its intelligence.
Any Downsides? Of course, due to the restrictive licensing some of the songs are just 30-second sound bites. Second, this is being rolled our for the US market only, at least for now.
There are some interesting aspects to report especially what was mentioned in a recent TechCrunch report. The TC blog revealed that Google’s Music Onebox will highlight exclusive songs contributed by “a number of well known artists” There are over 20 acts rumored to be offering tunes exclusively found on Google search, in addition a few of those songs will be given away for free.
Looking at this on paper, Google is not partnering directly with the record companies for licensing, instead Google has the labels approve and sign on with the new feature. So far mainstream content producers have welcomed the idea as a way to increase bottom line revenues and capitalize on market trends.
“Google is the most powerful internet partner that these music services could have ”Many indie artists and labels might be able to control and improve the content of their search results with the addition of Onebox to the search landscape.
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