While Apple Music has been aggressively, perhaps illegally, trying to kill the concept of ad supported radio with its own streaming music service, Google has secretly been working on a streaming music service of its own.
On Tuesday, Google went in the opposite direction of Apple and launching a free, ad-supported version of its Google Play Music service in the United States.
The online advertising company says it’s designed to add another revenue stream to artists on top of paid download and paid streaming subscriptions. Google also went on to say that the ultimate goal is to bring more users aboard its subscription service.
Google is the latest tech company to challenge a crowded field of online music streamers such as Pandora, Spotify, Rdio and Apple Music, among others.
Google’s service uses technology from Songza, the playlist start-up it acquired a year ago. Playlists on the service will be customized to your mood and the time of day. Google also announced via a blog post that a team of music experts “craft each station song by song so you don’t have to, with whatever you need music for – from working, to working out, to working it on the dance floor.” Like rival Apple Music, Google’s service will use both human curators and sophisticated algorithms to determine what to play for you.
Never one to miss an opportunity to take a shot at rival Apple, Google’s announcement stressed that while the service is ‘free’ (ad supported) for users, it’s “absolutely paying artists.”
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