Music for everything you do

If the space wasn’t crowded enough, without all the hoopla that we saw with Apple’s launch of Beats1, Google lifted the wraps off Google Play Music Radio.

While only launching in the US now, here’s the spin from the Googleplex.

“Need some music right now to make whatever you’re doing better? Even if you’re not already a Google Play Music subscriber, we’ve got you covered. Google Play Music now has a free, ad-supported version in the U.S., giving you a new way to find just the right music—and giving artists another way to earn revenue. In less time than it takes you to read this sentence, you could be exercising with Drop-a-Beat Workout, cooling off with Poolside Chic, or spending quality time with Songs To Raise Your Kids To.”

Cutting to the chase, Google is delivering curated radio stations. That curation comes from the people and smarts behind Songza. Google brought Songza back in 2014 for around $39 mil, its app allowed users to craft a “station” (read playlist) by mood.

But they have gone a little further with Google Play Music with the ability to not only have a curated station say by a genre, mood, decade, artist or activity; you can also upload to the cloud your own library of songs, even your iTunes library.  The system will learn what you are into and craft a station around you.

And here’s a nice feature from Google, with or without a subscription, you can store and play up to 50,000 songs from your own collection for free.

With Google delivering the Android operating system on the vast majority of mobile devices, most will come pre-loaded with Google Play Music Radio out of the box. That is a bit a of head start compared to the Pandora’s,Spotify’s and Rdio’s in the same space. 

While Google is yet another player in the music space, is it yet another wake up call to define a stations point of difference beyond just a music proposition? 

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