Medium

Early Friday morning news started rolling in regarding Google’s new app/feature focused on music and aimed at making it easier to people search, find, listen to and even buy music. First reported as google’s new music “service”, as the murkiness clears up a bit, what the new feature seems to be is a widget that appears at the top of google’s search results when you search for song or artist…however it turns out it may just be a way for the majors to regain search engine optimization.

Teaming up with existing music services LaLa and iLIke (MySpace), instead of an adword or search result, a music related search will spawn a widget that lets you stream music. Techcrunch has some possible screenshots of what a search for U2 would look like. The news stories this morning all seem fairly positive, mentioning an October 28th release, but there are those like The Register, already calling the release “the most underwhelming launch in a long history of label-backed music flops.”

For indies, I guess we’ll have to see what comes of the deal and see how it may work. If anything make sure you’re search engine optimization is good and you’re digital distribution is on point (nothing new) . Services like Tunecore and CD Baby already distribute to LaLa amongst others and a simple search for some of the indie artists I’m working with right now know came up with some results on LaLa’s website. I personally have never even payed attention to iLike or Lala, but a partnership with google bumps it up on the list of online sites to make sure you’re music is heard.

Guess we’ll have to wait and see after their big LA release party on October 28th to see how it pans out. (Can we get a shot Sergey Brin on the red carpet with Young Jeezy?) If anything this just means that MySpace, who acquired iLike earlier this year, is here to stay. Not sure if that’s a negative (glitter graphics) or positive  just yet.

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