Selon le blog américain TechCrunch, Google finalise actuellement des accords de licence avec les majors de la musique en vue de lancer un nouveau service baptisé Google Audio. Google est déjà présent dans la musique en Chine, en partenariat avec le site Top100.cn, avec un moteur de recherche financée par la publicité qui permet d’écouter et de télécharger gratuitement les titres dénichés sur le net. Google Audio, dont le lancement exclusif aura d’abord lieu aux Etats-Unis, ne devrait pas reposer sur le même principe. Une chose est sûre, en terme de partage des revenus publicitaires, Google est certainement le mieux placé du marché. Le moteur de recherche a annoncé la semaine dernière un chiffre d’affaires trimestriel de 4,38 milliards de dollars après déduction des commissions aux sites affiliés, et détient 65 % du marché publicitaire sur les moteurs de recherche.

Google will partner with iLike and Lala for their new music service, we’ve learned. And the announcement date is Wednesday, October 28, 2009.

Press, including us, received an invitation this morning (see ticket image above) inviting them to a Hollywood event next week hosted by music services Lala and iLike. The invitation, titled “Discover Music!” says announcements will be followed by performances, and that Lala, iLike “& Others” are hosting. The “& Others” includes Google, we’ve heard from multiple sources, and the new service will be unveiled. All four major music services are backing the service.

iLike was recently acquired by MySpace, so the new service may involve them as well.

From information we’ve gathered from sources, the new service will be integrated into Google search. Users will be able to stream songs directly from Google via partners iLike and Lala. Additional information around the music query will be provided to users as well (presumably any relevant results from YouTube as well as information already available in Google’s existing music search – example). One source said that Google will organize music searches in a way very similar to the way they do public company stock searches today.

Users will also be offered the opportunity to purchase songs for download, we’ve confirmed.

Both iLike and Lala provided limited streaming services today. Lala lets users stream a song once, then a user either has to pay or only get a 30 second clip. iLike has some full streaming, some 30 second clips. MySpace Music has full streaming rights from all four major labels.

None of the companies involved will confirm the new Google Music service – we have “no comments” or absolute silence from Google, LaLa, MySpace and iLike. But the new service is all but confirmed. And we have the screenshots showing how the service, which will be announced on October 28, will look to prove it.

Matt Ghering, a product marketing manager at Google, has been one of the people talking to the big four music labels about the new service, we’ve heard from one of our sources. And he has supposedly sent these screenshots of the look and feel of Google Music search to various rights holders and potential partners.

The first screenshot shows how a search result might look on Google for a search for “U2.” A picture of the band is to the left of four streaming options for various songs, and the user has the option of listening via either iLike or LaLa. Click on one of the results, and a player pops up from the services that streams the song, along with an option to purchase the song for download.

We don’t know if this is the final look of the service, but it’s definitely something Google has been sending to people to show them what it might look like.

More thoughts on this later as we digest all the information coming in. But one thing is clear – this is a huge win for LaLa and iLike. Both will get massive flow from this deal. And as much as we criticize MySpace, their acquisition of iLike is starting to look sort of brilliant.

Cet article a été posté le Jeudi, 22 octobre 2009 à 17:24 et classé dans la catégorie Blog. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.