14 DAY TRIAL // Google's music service is rumor no more, the company has confirmed that it will be announcing its long awaited music streaming service later today at the 2011 Google I/O conference. Google will be revealing a music cloud locker service, very similar to what Amazon launched about a month ago.
Also like Amazon, Google doesn't have any type of deal with the major labels, so the service it will be offering will be rather limited with fewer features than it showcased a year ago.
At last year's I/O conference Google demoed a music service which enabled users to stream their music as well as buy new songs and have them synced to their Android devices over the air.
At the time it looked like a pretty slick service and one that would be a definite boon for Android and would have been one of the best online music services.
But negotiations lingered, Google hasn't been able to strike a deal with the major labels to license music for a digital store, streaming or whatever else Google had in mind.
It looks like Google was part of the problem as well since it couldn't make up its mind about what it wanted its music service to be.
"Unfortunately, a couple of the major labels were less focused on the innovative vision that we put forward, and more interested in an unreasonable and unsustainable set of business terms," Google's Jamie Rosenberg, who heads digital content and strategy for Android, said.
Regardless, all that is moot now, a year of negotiations have been for nothing since Google decided to go the Amazon route. This means that it doesn't depend on licensing, but it also means that it can only offer a limited service.
Google Music will enable users to upload their music to the cloud and then stream it in any browser and on mobile devices. Unlike Amazon though, Google can't sell music to its users.
Google will be launching the service in beta, invite-only and just in the US, for now. Google I/O participants will be the first to be let in, then Android tablet users and eventually anyone that requests an invitation. The company says it will add more features along the way so it hasn't given up on its plans to have a more complete online music product.