Google Takes Aim at iTunes but Only Hits the Haters

Google deserves plenty of credit for what it's done with Google Music. It's free, it streams music to browsers and Android devices, and it stores lots of music. However it won't be enough to change the minds of Apple devotees. Actually, even Apple haters might find a more attractive alternative with Amazon.

Harsh? Maybe. Nevertheless as I see it, anyone who is happy with their iPhone, iPod touch or iPad can as well ignore Google Music. The same goes for anyone who uses iTunes and doesn't outright hate Apple.

Google Music lets you upload your music and stream it from the cloud to Web browsers and Android-based devices. Nice. With iTunes Match, Apple lets you do the in essence the same thing, with potentially less effort for uploading. Clearly, iTunes Match will cost you 25 clams for the privilege, nevertheless it seems that the US$25 was the cost of playing ball with the major record labels.

The top four major record labels

Google did manage to snag three of the top four major record labels, missing out only on Warner Music Group, anyway for now. Google as well has smaller independent record labels on board, too. As for Apple, all four of the majors let Apple sell their songs. This, clearly, only matters if you want to buy new music from Warner artists -- I believe that Google Music will on the whole let you upload existing tracks to your Google Music storage locker in the sky.

There are similarities and minor differences between the two. With Apple's iTunes Match, if one of your songs happens to be one of the 20 million or so that Apple offers and is matched, you can re-download the song as a 256-kbps, DRM-free AAC file. And for $25, Apple iTunes Match lets you manage up to 25,000 songs.

Google Music, to make up for it, offers songs encoded at 320 Kbps as MP3 files. My ears are not audiophile quality, nevertheless I'm pretty sure that 99 percent of all consumers won't be able to tell a difference in quality between the two formats and bit rates, particularly when played through computer speakers or cheap headphones from mobile devices. Oh, and the number of songs Google will store for you in the cloud? 20,000.

The other hand

On the other hand, Google Music has got to be an awesomely welcome service for Android-packing smartphone users. If I packed an Android phone, I'd be ecstatic.

So what Google Music as a matter of fact comes down to -- again -- is the overall battle for the ecosystem of consumers. Google wants consumers to buy into the Android-focused world, and if at all possible, do business through Google. Amazon.com, conversely, as well plays then with Android, however Amazon wants consumers to use its Amazon MP3 music store, Amazon Cloud Player, Amazon Cloud Drive, Appstore for Android ... and now use it all with its proprietary Android blend in its Kindle Fire tablet.

While Google wants to create its own walled-garden ecosystem, it has managed to come up with a pair of undeniably cool features, and it's not the promise of a free song every day or even special exclusive tracks from some artists. No, the first cool feature is the ability to share your purchased music with your friends via the Google+ social networking platform. So your buddies can listen to the songs you love, at length, one time, for free. That's nice. And influential. A buddy tells me to listen to a new artist and I pay attention, even if I don't end up sharing the passion.

In addition to this nice music promotion and discovery feature, Google is letting artists build their own artist pages or mini-sites and letting them upload their own music to offer to the masses. In iTunes, big-name musicians and groups get cool sites, nevertheless I always thought this was just Apple creating the pages. With Google, artists will gain a lot of control in how they present themselves and reach out to fans. That's awesome. Clearly, a lot of the great established artists are too busy to bother or don't care, yet it's nevertheless another avenue artists can use to find and nurture an audience without needing big marketing dollars from a record label to do it.

As long as Apple produces enviable hardware that's consistently desirable, it will take a long time to crumble the iTunes tower.