14 DAY TRIAL // Google has confirmed that it is building a digital music store. It's not going to be any old MP3 store, Android boss Andy Rubin says, but he didn't provide any other details. He did also confirm though that the store is launching soon, but didn't set a date.
There have been several, newer rumors about Google's MP3 store. The company has been working on it for quite a long time, but previous negotiations ended up going nowhere.
Recently, Google went back to the negotiation table and it seems that, this time around, it's finally going to have something to show for it.
Rubin, speaking at the AsiaD conference, said that there are some interesting things about the upcoming store, it "will have a little twist - it will have a little Google in it. It won’t just be selling 99 cent tracks," he said.
However, while he did say that Google is "close" to launching the store, rumors say that it hasn't signed any of the four major labels yet and is only close to signing EMI.
And negotiations have been derailed at the last moment before, so don't be too surprised if things don't go as Google intended.
Google has been trying to add a music store to its offering for quite a while. It would have been a boon for its Android devices and it would have enabled the company to better compete in some markets with players such as Apple or Amazon, the only two serious contenders in the digital music market in the US.
Last spring though, negotiations fell apart and Music Beta by Google was launched without any kind of licensing from the labels. Music Beta is purely a cloud locker service, a rather limited one at that, and is still in private beta.