“Google Inc on Wednesday partnered with Web services Lala and MySpace’s iLike to give music fans an easier way to find, sample and buy songs on the Internet, expanding its music industry footprint,” Sue Zeidler reports for Reuters.
“The global Web search leader will provide users who want to sample a song with a pop-up box that will play at least a 30-second segment — in some cases the entire song — provided by iLike and Lala, which will then offer links to purchase the music,” Zeidler reports.
“Google has also teamed up with Pandora, iMeem and Rhapsody to incorporate links to those music sites, to help consumers discover music related to search queries,” Zeidler reports. “Google will begin rolling the feature out to users across the United States on Wednesday.”
Zeidler reports, “The new capability will help listeners find songs by entering a search by title, album, artist or even with a line or two of lyrics… The Lala-powered music service allows users to stream any song in its catalog of 8.5 million tunes once for free, and then sells unlimited [low-fidelity 64 kbps] streams for 10 cents per track and MP3 files [VBR average of 256 kbps], starting at 89 cents… Lala also soon plans to release an Apple iPhone application.”
Full article here.
