Google Inc. has unveiled a new music store, “but the giant web search company’s new music partners have already labeled the service ‘unexciting,” Yinka Adegoke and Alexei Oreskovic report for Reuters. “Music executives had been hoping for a more groundbreaking, fully functional cloud-based service; but after licensing talks broke down earlier this year, Google scaled back their ambitions.”
“Google has negotiated U.S. deals with three of the four major music companies: Vivendi SA’s Universal Music Group; Sony Corp’s Sony Music Entertainment; and EMI,” Adegoke and Oreskovic report. “It has also signed deals with the increasingly influential independent label group Merlin and London-based Beggar’s Banquet label group, home to the biggest selling artist of the year, Adele… Warner Music Group Corp has yet to reach a deal.”
Adegoke and Oreskovic report, “Google had previously launched its unlicensed Music Beta service in May to indifferent reviews. Michael Gartenberg, an analyst with industry research firm Gartner… noted that Google’s track record taking on the entrenched online media players is not impressive. ‘Just look at their ebook effort … People just don’t think of Google as a major ebook player at this point. So it’s hard to see how they’re going to disrupt music away from Apple,’ he said.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Hey, three-quarters-baked is better than Our Lady of Perpetual Beta’s usual half-baked, right?
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