Reports are circulating that Google is extending its Glass Explorer program to subscribers of Google’s arduously-named Google Play Music All Access on-demand music service. This makes perfect sense, since Google recently added music-control features to Glass. Continue Reading
Google and Audi will announce a tech/auto partnership at CES next week. Google is squaring off against Apple’s “iOS in the Car” program announced last summer. Car companies are flocking to CES, a trend that represents the re-invention of the automobile as a mobile device. Continue Reading
We were hooked by Earl Grant’s dusky reading of Fever, which took us straight into a nighttime fog along the Seine, Parisian streetlights fighting against the damp air. Wait, it’s Monday morning. Continue Reading
In last Wednesday’s Spotify media event, the most important announcement was the launch of an expanded free service on smartphones. “Shuffle” was the buzzword of the day for Spotify. The next day, without fanfare, Google updated its Google Play music service for Android… Continue Reading
An unofficial revenue report reveals YouTube as a financial giant. On the content side, YouTube is winning the streaming-music war before launching its rumored music service. Led Zeppelin signed an “exclusive” streaming deal with Spotify, but already has a much larger presence on YouTube. Continue Reading
But probably not for long. Keep in mind that everything written about YouTube’s entry into the subscription-music market is rumor, based on undisclosed sources. The latest twist: AllThingsD reports the rumored service will not meet its rumored launch timeframe (end… Continue Reading
Although we and most other observers have been presuming an imminent YouTube music service to be ordained fact, it is merely a widely-reported rumor. That rumor got a strengthened spine when the Android Police website performed a “teardown” (examination of… Continue Reading
Last week’s drop of Google’s All Access music subscription app into Apple’s app store was a milestone moment in both the music-service wars and the larger tech-ecosystem land grab. We had fun with our “Google invades Apple” headline, and every media site covering the convergence of music and Internet hit the same note.
The invasion metaphor is apt, more than just for its imagery of two tech/media giants engaged in business warfare. Google’s Play Music All Access, awkwardly-named thought it might be, offers a more complete music platform than Apple does — and likewise for Spotify, Rhapsody, Pandora, and Rdio. Continue Reading
Long rumored and finally accomplished: Google dropped its tortuously-named Google Play Music All Access app into the iOS store today, extending its subscription service to Apple mobile-device users. (The launch was announced by Google here.) Pointless, you say, because Apple… Continue Reading
Google’s wearable Glass product, which clamps onto the user’s face like glasses and provides on-command field-of-vision computing, is reportedly stepping into music in a few ways. First, predictably, Glass will interact with the Google Play Music service, enabling song, album,… Continue Reading
The YouTube Music Awards played last night with an anti-TV programming sensibility, to a small anti-TV audience. A reported peak concurrent audience of 220,000 individuals streamed the event. Total viewership finalized to 873,000 people, according to the live page. The… Continue Reading
YouTube, the gorilla in the room when it comes to online music listening, is reportedly ramping up to launch a freemium music service, probably modeled after Spotify and Rhapsody with a video component. (See Billboard’s breaking report here.) If true,… Continue Reading