Hip-Hop Island

Google’s partnership with iLike, LaLa, iMeem, Rhapsody, Pandora, and MySpace makes searching for and buying new music from your favorite artists easier, but only if you know what you are looking for. That was the wonderful thing about Google – couldn’t remember a song, but knew a lyric? Throw it into the Google search and BINGO, you’ve got what you’re looking for. Sure, Google is still capable of doing that, but their new music search feeds into a business plan that promotes proper purchasing of music, instead of discovering new music and artists.

With the lack of records being sold, the music industry struggles to catch up with the interactive world we live in. Singles and album purchases on iTunes has been a small saving grace for the industry, but will Google’s new music service give record labels the business support they’ve been looking for? Artists, label execs and producers everywhere are certainly hoping so.

Google’s new music search allows users to search for an artist, song or album and links to short 30-second streams on partner sites – usually not full streams, so you’ll have to coin up that 99 cents to download the full song. MySpace, in particular, is supporting a pop-out full stream of the song since they have the full rights from all four major labels, but when it comes to finding other artists you may like, just go to MySpace or iMeem instead because Google can’t help.

Google’s music services are strictly one-to-one – search for an artist you want to hear, sample songs and checkout minutes later from a partner site with new tunes to jam out to. Sounds cool enough, right? But what if you wanted something new? Or more importantly, what if you don’t know what you are looking for? In that case, best use Google search for its old-school methods. Sites like iMeem, iLike and MySpace prosper in the music department because they’ve created a social space where users and friends alike can discover music from any genre, discuss, and share with others. Google strips away the interaction and gets right down to business.

A very large business, in fact, one that’s mostly monopolized by iTunes. Google’s new music service finally creates an even playing ground their partners LaLa.com and iLike.com. Think twice before you head right to iTunes to download albums because LaLa.com probably has it for much less. Shopping for music will be much more consumer driven now that Google Results will provide users with multiple places to purchase the same song. Think of Google’s music search as the Progressive Insurance model – they’ll find you the best places to listen to a song and the cheapest places to buy music.

Originally published @ http://musicindustryonline.info/blog/?p=530