“Google announced today that it’s acquiring the streaming-music service Songza for an undisclosed sum,” Ben Popper reports for The Verge. ” Over the coming months it will be integrating the company’s smart playlist creation into Google Play Music and perhaps YouTube. Songza will remain an active and independent app for the time being. The purchase highlights the increasingly competitive landscape emerging around music, as Apple, Amazon, and Google all seek to differentiate their mobile products by offering top-notch streaming services.”
“When Beats Music launched in January of this year, it offered users the ability to build a playlist based on variables like their mood, location, and activity,” Popper reports. “Songza actually offered this kind of contextual playlist creation way back in 2010, when it was still web-only. The company launched its mobile app in 2011 and has since grown to serve 5.5 million active users. Sources familiar with the deal say that the purchase price for Songza, which had raised a total of just $6.7 million to date, was far less than what Apple paid for Beats. Earlier reports on the acquisition from the New York Post said Google was offering around $15 million.”
“Songza is closer to Pandora, which uses human musicologists to decide what songs go well together,” Popper reports. “Beats Music also has a team of editors hired from places like Pitchfork and XXL to create playlists for its users.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Songza. The poor man’s Beats Music.
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I actually enjoy Songza. Songza is not the poor mans beats. It’s actually been out a lot longer and I actually use it unlike the $9.99 and up beats. Songza is free, offers variety, and at the time offered something different(music based on moods, time of day etc) that no one else offered(offers?) Don’t start trashing them just cause google bought them. Although that is disappointing.
Your gaggle check is in the mail. Good job young man.
It’s simply his opinion. You phony.
Agree, used Songza for a long time while running and so on. It;s a great App and I didn’t know what was next for them, but happy for them if this is what they wanted.
And don’t expect anything less here. It’s trashing for the sake of trashing anything that isn’t Apple. I love Apple as much as anyone, but I can accept there is going to be some sort of competition out there. These things all make Apple better anyway.
Nothing is free.
Indeed. What’s the cost? Where is the catch? Somebody has to pay.
Ads cover the cost unless you subscribe to the pro feature which is $9.99 a month. just like iTunes Radio is ads based unless your an iTunes Match subscriber.
Deleted from my iPhone and iPad Mini. Not gonna be tracked based on my “mood”.
MDN just kill me with their continuous emphasis on wealth being exclusive to people who use Apple products. The iPhone is as highly subsidized by carriers for the rich as it is for the less fortunate. Apple can Beats and it’s boy in the hood stigma.
Yes, Apple bought Beats, a $1 Billion a year headphone business that also has a music streaming service.
While, Google paid “far less” for a music streaming service.
Another biased article trying to make it seem that Apple overpaid for Beats.
Yes I thought that though it may be just ignorance on the writers part.
Monkey see, monkey do.
Wow – it’s free!
So does that mean that bands get $0 per play instead of $0.00003 or $0.00004? Not much difference, really…
Time to delete Songa!
Was so disappointed when I heard this news >< Songza was great!