The news wires are abuzz with Google’s new music search feature. The new Google feature will allow users to search for an artist, song, album or lyric and get a music result that will include album art and a ‘play’ button that will let you listen to the music. MySpace and Lala will be serving up the music and you’ll be able to play any song in full just once. The music results will also include links to Pandora, imeem and Rhapsody. Lyrics search is provided by Gracenote.
Here’s the video announcement:
It’s about time that Google starts to include the ability to listen to search results – this will help. It’s pretty cool, but I don’t think it changes the music discovery game too much. Search is not discovery.
Update: The Register is particularly unimpressed: “Trying to forcefeed punters a lousy service is a bad idea, amplified by the assumption that if Facebook and Google are the feeding tube, we’ll suck it up.”
Music Machinery 
#1 by Hal Halvorsen on October 28, 2009 - 8:19 pm
That Google thing is a damp squib.
The Register nailed it:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/10/22/google_facebook_music_widget_fail/
#2 by Paul on October 28, 2009 - 9:03 pm
Thanks Hal – I’ve added a link to the register article.
#3 by brian on October 28, 2009 - 11:45 pm
Not to overly defend our google friends, but it’s a first step. I think it fits well with their mission and simplicity — it’s not like they pop up a big box with “if you search for this weird rash, you may also like this other weird rash” when you’re using normal google search. Other than google reader and adwords (and the inherited youtube) what discovery does google use overall?
#4 by Paul on October 29, 2009 - 12:56 am
Brian: Google news has a recommendation component that is quite popular.
#5 by Paul on October 29, 2009 - 1:16 am
Brian: Also, the PR around the google event talks quite a bit about music discovery – such as this quote: “If you think about music discovery today, the vast majority begins with a Google search,” said Lala co-founder – as seen in http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5gsYy4yYhE-YWK6i60yzIwP4HyRMwD9BKCVHO0
#6 by David Jennings on October 29, 2009 - 6:47 am
Repeat Paul’s mantra after me, “search is not discovery, search is not discovery”…. However… being able to share songs is a key currency in discovery. Good sharers will love to be able to pass on a song as easily as a URL (which you can do with Spotify or We7 in the UK, and I guess with Rhapsody, LaLa and other services in the US). However, lazy or forgetful sharers often don’t get round to providing the URL. For those cases, being able to punch the track title into Google and hear it is the next best thing for the recipient. (I’m assuming that’s how this OneBox works from the screengrab — can’t actually use it myself as I’m not in the US.) So search is part of the underpinning infrastructure of social discovery.
#7 by Zac on October 29, 2009 - 8:44 am
Looks like it hasn’t fully rolled out yet, but you can get there from here: http://www.google.com/landing/music/