Search results for new music discovery service display 4 streaming tracks, and links to videos, news, and images, but is certain to disappoint those expecting something revolutionary.
Google has finally rolled out its new “Discover Music” platform that I first mentioned late last week.
Done after apparent urging by the music industry, the scheme is that Google will profit from ads on the results pages while record labels could spur interest and drive music sales.
As you can see below, a search query for a given artist returns results that include: 4 free streaming track links, news links, band site, video and image results.
It’s a pretty cool new feature from Google, and perhaps more importantly, shows what the music industry can do if it only it decided that it really does want to be more creative with reaching music fans. For most of its history it’s done all it can to make sure people can only enjoy music on its terms and wondered all the while why its profits have been declining year after year.
The only downside is that it’s not very groundbreaking and lacks any sort of wow factor, especially for BitTorrent users long accustomed to the search features of Waffles.fm, What.cd and the enhancements of OiNKPlus (see pic below).
It’s a nice start, and I hope it improves, but it’ll take more than a few streaming links and YouTube videos to have any real impact with music fans.
Stay tuned.
jared@zeropaid.com
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Watch Google’s info video….
I have a feeling they’ll have to buy up another service to be groundbreaking. Google video was not very impressive and Google wound up buying YouTube to corner that market. Looks like the same has to be done for music if Google has a hope at competing against sites like iTunes. Problem is, there isn’t really much of a second place at this point that hopes to compete against iTunes. So Google has their work cut out for them big time in this.
Um… it only shows up like a regular search page for me, absolutely no difference. How is this gonna serve any purpose?
it is a good source for free music